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EEMINISCENCES 



BY 

GOLDWIN SMITH, D.C.L. 

EDITED BY 

ARNOLD HAULTAIN, M.A. 



ILLUSTRATED 



Weto gorft 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1910 

All rights reserved 



f» 



0-33 



COPTBtGHT, 1910, 

By the 8. S. McCLURE COMPANY, 
Bt the ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY, 
By the ONTARIO PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

AND 

By the sun printing AND PUBLISHING ASSOCIATION. 

COPYKIGHT, 1910, 

By THEODORE ARNOLD HAULTAIN. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1910. 



Norfnaoti ^ress 

J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick &, Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



©CI.A27o8nl \ 



/ 



^' 







PREFACE 

BY THE EDITOR 

I HAVE ventured to put my name on the title- 
page of this book because its author assigned to 
me the task of preparing it for the press. 

That task has been a difficult one. The bulk 
of the book was not composed till the writer had 
passed his seventy-fifth year; and although the 
manuscript was first written out by the author's 
own hand, then dictated to me, twice type-written, 
and constantly revised, yet not only is a septuagen- 
arian's memory apt to slip, but a septuagenarian's 
solicitude for accuracy is apt to be labile also. I 
have corrected many errors; probably many still 
remain uncorrected. If so, I must plead that the 
work of editing was done in haste, and done some 
three thousand miles from the British Museum or 
the Bodleian. 

Again, much of the manuscript was in a chaotic 
state ; some of the chapters, indeed, consisted 



vi PREFACE 

merely of fragmentary and inconsequent para- 
graphs. With these I have dealt as best I could. 

My own pen has hardly anywhere intruded 
itself : it is not for me to despoil the book of its 
peculiarities — even of its repetitions. 

Elderly (and erudite) readers, however, must 
forgive my footnotes. They are for a younger 
generation. Besides, I have tried to remember 
that names and events which may be quite famil- 
iar to readers on one side of the Atlantic may be 
very unfamiliar to readers on the other. 

For the greater number of these notes, Messrs. 
Smith, Elder, and Company's " Dictionary of 
National Biography " was invaluable. 

I have sought information from many sources, 
and amongst the many to whom I owe thanks are 
the Reverend the Master of University College, 
Oxford (for notes on the bust of King Alfred) ; 
the Right Honourable Sir Roland L. B. Vaughan 
Williams, Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal ; 
the Editor of The Spectator; Sir J. Gardner D. 
Engleheart, K.C.B. ; the Reverend Professor Wil- 
liam Clark, of Toronto; Mr. Mansfeldt de Car- 
donnel Findlay, C.M.G. ; Herr Franz H. Bassenge, 



PREFACE vii 

British Vice-Consul at Dresden; Mr. Arthur W. 
Kaye Miller, Assistant Keeper of Printed Books 
at the British Museum; Mrs. Place, of Skelton 
Grange, Yorkshire (a cousin of Mr. Goldwin 
Smith) ; Mr. Frederic Harrison ; the Lady Frances 
Bushby ; Constance Lady Russell, of Swallowfield ; 
the Right Honourable G. W. E. Russell ; Mr. Wil- 
liam Prideaux Courtney ; Mr. W. George Eakins, 
Librarian of the Law Society of Upper Canada, 
Osgoode Hall, Toronto ; Mr. George William Harris, 
Ph.B., Librarian of Cornell University. 

I wish also here to thank Dr. J. G. Schurman, 
President of Cornell University, and the Executive 
Committee of his Board of Trustees, for a gener- 
osity which has enabled me to edit these Remi- 
niscences in the room in which they were written; 
in the room in which, side by side, their writer 
and I worked for more than seventeen years; the 
room in which I watched that writer breathe his 
last. 

The Library, The Grange, 

Toronto, Canada, November, 1910. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 
BOYHOOD. 1823-1834 

PAGES 

Reading — Social Life — My Father and Family — Our House 

— Old Customs 1-11 

CHAPTER II 

MORTIMER. 1848-1867 

The Parish — Rural Society — Fox-hunting — The Duke of Wel- 
lington — Miss Mitf ord — Sir Henry Russell — John Walter 

— Sir John Mowbray — Lord Lyon — Sir Roderick and 
Lady Murchison 12-31 

CHAPTER III 

SCHOOL. 1831-1840 

School — Schoolmates — Eton — Dr. Goodall, the Provost — The 
Head Master, Hawtrey — William IV — Queeu Victoria — 
Schoolmates 32-49 

CHAPTER IV 
OXFORD. 1841-1845 

Dean Gaisf ord — Magdalen — Magdalen Demys — Martin Routh 

— Fellows of Magdalen — The Tractarian Movement — The 
Curriculum — Oxford Life — Contemporaries . . 50-74 

CHAPTER V 

OXFORD TUTORSHIP. 1851-1854 

FeUows — Arthur Penrhyn Stanley — Benjamin Jowett — Thor- 

old Rogers — Mark Pattison — Sir Travers Twiss . 75-87 



X CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VI 

TRAVELS. 1847 

PAaaa 
The Tyrol — Dresden — Prague — Normandy — Guizot — Italy 

— Italian Exiles — Louis Blanc 88-97 

CHAPTER VII 

UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS. 1854-1858 

The Unreformed University — The Commissioners — Dr. Jeune 

— Liddell — Tait — Johnson — The Report — The BiU— 
The Executive Commission — The Executive Commission- 
ers — Richard BetheU, Lord Westbury — The Commissioners' 
Report 98-115 

CHAPTER VIII 
EDUCATION COMMISSION. 1858-1861 

The Commissioners — William Charles Lake — Nassau Senior 

— James Eraser — Popular Education .... 116-120 

CHAPTER IX 

LAW. 1846 

Lincoln's Inn — On Circuit — English and American Courts of 
Justice — Criminal Law — Judges — The Bar — Sir Gardner 
Engleheart — Briton Riviere 121-131 

CHAPTER X 

LONDON. 1845-1861 

Macaulay — Samuel Rogers — Lord Houghton — Henry Hallam 

— Milman — Thackeray — Croker — Tyndall — Herbert 
Spencer — " The Grange " — Lady Ashburton — Carlyle — 
Tennyson — Bishop Wilberf orce — Lady Waldegrave — Par- 
liamentary Debates — The Theatre — Louis Blanc — 
Brougham — Lady Dukinfield 132-160 



CONTENTS Xi 

CHAPTER XI 

JOURNALISM. 1855-1858 

PA08a 
Peel — The Saturday Review — Members of the Staff — Froude 

— Letters on the Empire 161-173 

CHAPTER XII 
CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 

Peel — Disraeli — "Lothair" — Bentinck — The Duke of New- 
castle — CardweU — " Welbeck " — Gladstone — The Peel- 
ites — Sidney Herbert — Canning — Dalhousie — Sir James 
Graham — Lord Aberdeen — Russell — Granville — Godley 

— Joseph Chamberlain — Earl Grey . . . . 174-214 

CHAPTER XIII 
THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 

Objects of the School — Peace Policy — Anti-Imperialism — 
Bright and Cobden — Socialism — Property — The Irish 
Question 215-237 

CHAPTER XIV 
BRIGHT AND COBDEN 

Bright's Oratory — Cobden — His Politics — Peel — Disraeli — 

Peel as a Party Leader 238-271 

CHAPTER XV 
OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP. 1858-1866 

Settling at Oxford — Telepathy — Halford Vaughan — Henry 
Smith — Max Miiller — Monier Williams — Thorold Rogers 

— Rolleston — Waring — Coxe — Froude — Cradock — The 
Great Western Railway — King Edward VII — Prince 
Leopold — Dr. Acland — Gladstone .... 272-286 



xii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XVI 

PUBLIC EVENTS 

PAGKB 

Crimean War — The War Passion — The War Policy — Napo- 
leon III — The Chartist Procession .... 287-293 

CHAPTER XVII 

ELECTIONS 

Anthony John Mundella — Sheffield — Trades-Unionism — 
Nursing a Constituency — Election Tactics — The Party 
System 294-300 

CHAPTER XVIII 

IRELAND. 1862; 1881 

Cardwell as Irish Secretary — The Irish People — Irish Liberals 

— Crime in Ireland — Education — Social Life — Robert 
Lowe — Second Visit to Ireland — Lord O'Hagan — Royal 
Visits to Ireland — W. E. Forster — Gladstone's Irish 
Policy 301-318 

CHAPTER XIX 

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR. 1861-1865 

Secession — Its True Character — Lincoln's View — The Alabama 
Claim — Attitude of the British Government — British Lib- 
erals — Visits to the United States — Friends in the United 
States — J. M. Forbes — Emerson — Lowell — Bancroft — 
The Attitude of the North — Finance — General Butler — 
The Opposing Forces — General Grant — Sherman — Gen- 
eral Meade — Lee — General Butler Again — Washington 

— Seward — Abraham Lincoln 319-356 

CHAPTER XX 

JAMAICA. 1866 

Conflict of Races — Outbreak — Governor Eyre's Action — The 
Jamaica Committee — Chief Justice Cockburn's Charge — 



CONTENTS Xiii 

PAGES 

John Stuart Mill — Woman Suffrage — Thomas Hughes — 
Frederick Denison Maurice — Manchester Liberals . 357-364 



CHAPTER XXI 

CORNELL. 1868-1871 

Resignation of Oxford Professorship — Invitation to Cornell — 
Ezra Cornell — The University — Cornell's Ideas — Arrival 
at Ithaca — Fellow Lecturers — Life at Ithaca — The Oneida 
Community — Friends at Cornell 365-379 



CHAPTER XXn 

VISITS TO EUROPE 

Reading — Magdalen — Oxford — Spiritualism — Ignorance of 
Canada — Kuaresborough — Curious Crimes — Italy — Flor- 
ence — Venice — Ravenna — Second Visit to Italy — Sicily 
— The Mafia — Pizzo — Italian Cruelty — Amalfi. — The 
Papacy — Capua — Rome — Florence Again . . 380-398 

CHAPTER XXIII 

VISITS TO WASHINGTON 

Settling in Canada — Washington — Bancroft — Bayard — The 
Pensions Bill — The Capitol — American Oratory — Ameri- 
can Statesmanship — Washington Society — The Party 
System — Newspaper Reporters — E. L. Godkia . . 399-413 

CHAPTER XXIV 

VISITS TO THE NORTH-WEST. 1870; 1888; 1889 

The North- West — Winnipeg — Skye Crofters — Immigration — 
Annexation — The Canadian Pacific Railway — The Rocky 
Mountains — British Columbia 414-423 



xiv CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XXV 
CANADIAN POLITICS 

PAOBS 

The Relation of Canada to the Imperial Country — Confedera- 
tion — Quebec — Titles for Colonists — Political Parties — 
Sir John Macdonald — George Brown — Alexander Mac- 
kenzie — Edward Blake — John Sandfield Macdonald — 
Joseph Howe — Francis Hincks — Sir Richard Cartwright 
— Sir Charles Tapper — The Destiny of the Colonies — An- 
nexation — " Canada First " — The Irish Question — Free 
Trade — Reciprocity — The Temperance Question — The 
Patrons of Industry — The Weekly Sun . . . 424-449 

CHAPTER XXVI 

MY LIFE IN CANADA. 1871-1910 

Marriage — "The Grange" — Our Household — General Mid- 
dleton — Civic Charities — The Governor-Generalship — 
The Athletic Club — Literary Oppoi-tunities — The Uni- 
versity Question — Sports — Last Days . . . 450-465 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



GoLDWiN Smith Frontispiece 

Photograph by Elliot and Fry. 



FACING PAGES 

. 12 



Dr. Richard Pritchard Smith 

Goldwin Smith's Father. 

Facsimile of Last Paragraph on Page 25 . 

Goldwin Smith at about Forty Years of Age 
Photograph by J. H. Guggenheim, Oxford. 

Goldwin Smith at about Forty Years of Age 

Copy of a photograph by Mayall, of Brighton. (The original 
hangs in the Common Room of University College, Oxford.) 

Facsimile of Paragraph on Page ISo 

Showing (i) original manuscript (as dictated to me) ; (ii) an 
addition in pencil, and (iii) an emendation in ink, by the 
author. 

Photograph of a Bust of Goldwin Smith 
Made at Oxford about 1866, by Alexander Munro. 

Goldwin Smith at about Forty-five Years of Age 
Photograph by C. H. Howes, of Ithaca, N.Y. 

Goldwin Smith at Seventy-five Years of Age 
Photograph by Dixon, of Toronto. 

Goldwin Smith at Seventy-five Years of Age 
Photograph by Dixon, of Toronto. 



The Grange 

Mr. Goldwin Smith's house at Toronto. 

Photograph of a Death-mask of Goldwin Smith 

Made by Mr. Walter S. Allward, of Toronto, on June the ninth, 
1910. 



25 
75 

132 
183 

272 
365 
399 
424 
450 
464 



REMINISCENCES 

CHAPTER I 

BOYHOOD 
1823-1834 

Reading — Social Life — My Father and Family — Our House — 
Old Customs. 

The old town of Reading, with its still quaint-looking 
streets, its ruined abbey and friary, its memories of 
medieval Congresses and Roundhead sieges, sleeps, as 
my memory paints it, in the summer sun. It is a very 
quiet place. The mail-coaches travelling on the Bath 
road at the marvellous rate of twelve miles an hour 
change horses at The Crown and the Bear. So do the 
travelling carriages and post-chaises of the wealthier 
wayfarer. The watchman calls the hour of the night. 
From the tower of old St. Lawrence's Church the curfew 
is tolled. My nurse lights the fire with the tinder-box. 
Over at Caversham ^ a man is sitting in the stocks. In 
the streets are figures of a generation now bygone. 
Mrs. Atkins Wright, the great lady of the neighbour- 
hood, comes in with her carriage-and-four, postillions 

[' A parish in Oxfordshire, a mile from Reading.] 

B 1 



2 REMINISCENCES 

in gorgeous liveries, and an out-rider. Mr. Fyshe 
Palmer/ the Radical Member for the borough, is known 
by his Whig costume of blue coat and buff waistcoat, 
with a curious little hat stuck on his powdered head. 
The Quaker dress abounds. It is worn by Huntley 
and Palmer, who keep a little biscuit-shop in London 
Street, where a little boy buys cakes, and from which 
has since sprung the biscuit factory of the universe. 
The shop of the principal draper is the ladies' Club. 

Into old St. Lawrence's Church, not yet restored, the 
Mayor and Aldermen march, robed, with the mace 
borne before them. In the pulpit, orthodoxy drones 
undisturbed by Ritualism or the Higher Criticism. The 
clerk below gives out the Christmas Hymn, saying at 
the end of each line ''Hal ! " in w^hich he does not recog- 
nize an abbreviation of ''Hallelujah." On a high seat 
in a high-backed pew sits a little boy, wishing the ser- 
mon would end, staring at the effigy of St. Lawrence on 
the capital of a pillar overhead, and wondering what 
the man could have been doing on the gridiron. Now 
and then his ear catches the sound of the Beadle's 
cane waking up a slumbering charity-boy to the ortho- 
dox excellence of the sermon. Compulsory Chapel 
at Eton and Oxford confirmed the impression compul- 
sory Church at Reading had made. 

The clergyman, the doctor, the solicitor, the banker, 

[' Charles Fyshe Palmer, seven times elected Member for Read- 
ing, was born in 1769 and died in 1843. — See "The Town of Read- 
ing." By W. M. Childs. Reading: University College. 1910. 
Page 62.] 



BOYHOOD 3 

the brewer, the retired general and admiral who has 
served under Wellington or Nelson, the retired mer- 
chant, the widower or spinster with a good income, 
form a social circle the members of which meet in each 
other's houses, play whist, the old game of long whist 
as played by Sarah Battle, and end with the temperate 
tray of sandwiches and negus. For the young people 
there are county balls, archery meetings, and other 
suitable diversions. There is no globe-trotting, hardly 
any departure from home, unless it be for health. 
Life, if it is not very lively, is calm; free from its present 
restlessness, if it lacks its present interest. The young 
are now, perhaps, by pastimes and summer gatherings, 
brought more together than they were in those days 
and provided with more pleasure. It may be doubted 
whether the life of the elders is so social. A friend 
with whom many years afterwards I was staying at 
Sydenham pointed out to me from a hill the suburban 
villas, from the number of which it would be supposed 
there must be a good deal of society in the place. 
"Yet," said he, "there is none. You cannot bring 
those people together for any purpose whatever. The 
man goes up to town by the morning train, spends the 
day in business, comes back to dinner, reads the paper, 
and falls asleep. For two months each year the pair 
go into lodgings by themselves at the seaside." The 
society of such a place as Reading, in my early days 
stationary, so that people passed their lives together, 
is now shifting. Those who have made their fortune 



4 REMINISCENCES 

in business are nowadays always changing their abode 
in quest of an Eden, and some of them chase the vision 
till they die. 

In the pulpit of the adjoining parish of St. Mary's 
the Higher Criticism had just dawned. Milman/ who 
was the Vicar, read German theology and gave 
his congregation a slight taste of it, which was not 
much relished. He also, being a poet, introduced new 
hymns, to the disparagement of Brady and Tate.^ 
Orthodoxy confronted him in the person of a retired 
East Indian, whose objections were sometimes aud- 
ible in the Church. One Sunday afternoon the adver- 
sary marched out of Church. It was supposed, as 
a theological protest. But it afterwards transpired 
that he had found the key of the curry-powder in his 
pocket. 

From this state of things I have lived into an age of 
express-trains, ocean greyhounds, electricity, bicycles, 
globe-trotting, Evolution, the Higher Criticism, and 
general excitement and restlessness. Reading has 
shared the progress. The Reading of my boyhood 
has disappeared almost over the horizon of memory. 
Whither is the train rushing, and where will the ter- 
minus be? 

In that quiet town one of the quietest streets was 

[' Henry Hart Milman, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's ; author 
of "History of Christianity under the Empire"; "Latin Chris- 
tianity"; etc. 1791-1868.] 

[* Nicholas Brady and Nahum Tate wrote a metrical version of 
the Psalms.] 



BOYHOOD 5 

Friar Street, in which my father Hved. He was a 
physician in very good practice, personally much 
respected, and very kind to the poor. He was the son 
of the Rector of Long Marston in Yorkshire, and grand- 
son of the Rector of Wellington. The family, I believe, 
came from Wyburnbury in Cheshire, in the church of 
which parish there is a tomb with armorial bearings 
the same as ours. The little mansion-house of the 
family at Wyburnbury has disappeared; but its out- 
line is preserved by the shape of the modern house 
built upon its site. I never attempted to trace the 
pedigree. A genealogy composed by my brother-in- 
law, Mr. Homer Dixon, ^ is, I fear, totally unauthentic. 
Our coat of arms denotes connection with the Prit- 
chards, a Welsh family. 

My mother's maiden name was Breton, a mark of 
Huguenot descent. She was one of a numerous family 
of brothers and sisters. She was the niece and almost 
the adopted daughter of Mr. Goldwin of Vicar's Hill 
near Leamington, a West India merchant, whose name 
I bear. 

One day I was suddenly called home from school. 

[1 His wife's brother, Benjamin Homer Dixon, Knight of the 
Order of the Netherlands Lion, Consul-General of the Netherlands 
in Canada. — See "The Border or Riding Clans; Followed by a 
History of the Clan Dickson, and a Brief Account of the Family 
of the Author, B. Homer DLxon, K.L.N." Albany: Joel Munsell's 
Sons. 1889. Page 213. — Also "Brief Account of the Family of 
Homer or de Homere of BttingshaU, Co. Stafford, Eng., and Boston, 
Mass." (Same publishers and date.) Page 23. — Also "The 
Scotch Border Clan Dickson, the Family of B. Homer Dixon, and 
the Family of De Homere or Homer." Toronto. 1884. Page 35.] 



6 REMINISCENCES 

I found the house in gloom. I was taken to my 
mother's bedside ; she spoke to me very tenderly, then 
told me to go and have my supper, and she would see 
me again. I saw her no more. The loss of her was the 
great misfortune of my life.^ 

Already, before my mother's death, three little 
coffins had left the door. It is hard to be born only to 
suffer and die. Seventy years afterwards, when I 
was living in Canada, a drawer which I had not before 
noticed, in a desk which had belonged to my mother, 
being opened, revealed the relics of a little sister; 
her hair, her silver knife, fork and spoon, the stones 
which were to form her necklace, the double guinea 
given her on her birthday. One boy remained beside 
myself.^ A brave boy he was, and a good soldier he 
would have made. He went with me to Eton, and had 
just got his commission ' in the army when he died. 
His disease I have no doubt was appendicitis, the exist- 
ence of which was unknown in those days and for which 
there could have been no operation, as there were no 
anaesthetics in those days. 

Our house in Friar Street stood on ground which 
had once belonged to the Abbey. In the garden, an 
apparent wreck, its limbs held together by chains, yet 
bearing fruit abundantly, stood a mulberry tree, 

[1 She died on the nineteenth of November, 1833, when Goldwin 
Smith was ten years old.] 

P Arthur Smith. Born 1827 ; died 1845.] 

[» The Commission is dated the 6th and 7th of November, 
1843.] 



BOYHOOD 7 

believed to be one of those planted in the time of Eliza- 
beth to introduce the silk trade. The garden was full 
of the old-fashioned flowers which horticulturists have 
now discarded, though those old flowers, the moss-rose, 
the lily-of-the-valley, and the columbine, inferior in 
size and brilliancy to the new, were perhaps superior 
in form. In an adjoining garden rose the stately sum- 
mer-house, with gilded ball, of Dr. Ring, a leader of 
the Evangelical party in those days. I see the old 
man now playfully shaking his cane at me when he was 
on his way to a sermon and I was galloping off on my 
pony. That scene the Great Western Railway has 
swept away. 

We children in those days at Christmastide looked 
joyously forward to three festivals, — Christmas Eve 
and Day, Twelfth Night, and New Year's Day. At 
Christmas there was in every household a feast with 
turkey, plum pudding, and mince pie. 

At midnight on Christmas Eve the child as he lay in 
bed heard with ravishment mixed with awe the music 
of the Waits in the street. The Mummers, lineal repre- 
sentatives perhaps of the Miracle Plays in the Middle 
Ages, went in their fantastic disguises from house to 
house, singing the hynm, "Christ is Born in Bethlehem." 
All houses were decked with the evergreen holly and its 
bright berries, a piece of which, by the way, was sent 
the other day to The Grange from England by an old 
servant who had left us thirty years before. At Christ- 
mas the children looked for gifts, though I do not 



8 REMINISCENCES 

remember any Santa Claus. The poor were feasted, 
and I think there was something Hke an opening of all 
hearts. We in Canada — the Anglicans among us, 
at all events — have preserved all this in some measure, 
though perhaps with some abatement from the feelings 
of the old time in the old land. Perhaps the feeling 
about the sacredness of the season and belief in the 
historical certainty of that birth in Bethlehem may 
have somewhat declined. On Twelfth Night, the Feast 
of the Epiphany, twelve days after Christmas, we had 
parties for the children, with feasting on iced cakes 
decked with little sugar figures, and playing at snap- 
dragon, that is, plucking raisins out of a dish of blazing 
brandy. There was also drawing for King and Queen, 
a custom of which I never knew the origin or the con- 
nection with the ecclesiastical festival. New Year's 
Day again brought feastings and gifts, with good wishes 
for the New Year. Both on Christmas Day and on 
New Year's Day there were family gatherings, more 
easily brought about in the tight little island than they 
are here. I do not remember that New Year's Day 
in England was a special day for paying calls, or that 
it was supposed that by it enmities were buried. 

Carnival in Protestant England, of course, there was 
none, except among the Catholics. To the Protestant 
child in England Good Friday was, in fact, a feast, 
since it brought him hot cross buns. Cries of ''One a 
penny, two a penny, hot cross buns ! " were heard in 
all the streets. 



BOYHOOD 9 

The next festival, if it could be called one, was May 
Day, the observance of which was connected with no 
religious ordinance or event, with no Christian ordi- 
nance at least, but with the revival of nature at the 
coming of spring, which could nowhere be more fitly 
celebrated than in England, with her verdant beauty, 
her green lanes, and hedgerows white with blossoms 
of May, her meadows full of cowslips and primroses, 
her woods full of purple and white hyacinths and vocal 
with the song of birds. In the days of Henry VIII 
and Elizabeth, May Day had been celebrated with 
sylvan pageantry and sports under the greenwood tree. 
In later days the decoration of the house with branches 
of May was about the only form of celebration generally 
left. 

May Day was the one day of happiness in the sad 
year for the poor chimney-sweeps, children of misery, 
parish orphans for the most part, but not seldom kid- 
napped for that most cruel trade. They came fantas- 
tically arrayed in rags of many colours and danced 
round a portable bower with a boy in it, clattering their 
shovels and brooms. They were repaid by a good 
dinner, the only one probably that they tasted in the 
year. Among many advances of humanity this hideous 
calling has now been long extinct. The legend was that 
a child, the son of a wealthy mother, living in a great 
mansion where now the British Museum stands, had 
been kidnapped and made a sweep ; that on May Day 
his master unconsciously brought him to sweep the 



10 REMINISCENCES 

chimneys in his mother's house; that he recognized 
his old room, crept into the bed, and was found there 
by his mother. The day of his recovery was made the 
Feast of Sweeps. 

On the Fifth of November, when I was young, the 
boys chaired about the streets a stuffed figure of gro- 
tesque appearance, which was afterwards burned with 
much shouting. Squibs and crackers were being 
everywhere let off through the day, and at night there 
were fireworks. The grotesque figure was Guy Fawkes, 
and the squibs and fireworks were in memory of the 
Gunpowder Plot. Though the privileges of childhood, 
especially a mischievous privilege, such as letting off 
fireworks in the streets, are tenacious of life, I should 
not expect, if I were now to visit England, to see the 
Fifth of November generally kept in the old style. 
The memory of the Gunpowder Plot is offensive to 
Catholics, the feeling against whom has died away. 

Boyhood has other gala days. There is a great 
cheese fair, a relic of medieval commerce, when the 
Forbury is paved with cheese and filled with enchanting 
booths and shows. There is election time, delightful 
to the boy, the polling lasting for a week, the town 
being all the time paraded by the rival processions with 
banners and music and the whole winding up with 
the chairing of the successful candidate. We had the 
greatest day of all when the Reform Bill of 1832 was 
carried, and the opening of an era of perfect govern- 
ment and popular bliss was celebrated in the Forbury 



BOYHOOD 11 

with races, games, running in sacks, climbing greasy 
poles, chasing pigs with greased tails, and bobbing for 
cherries, winding up with fireworks in the evening. 

Between that state of things and the present there 
is only a single lifetime ; yet I feel as if I were writing 
of antiquity. 



CHAPTER II 

MORTIMER 

1848- 

The Parish — Rural Society — Fox-hunting — The Duke of Well- 
ington — Miss Mitford — Sir Henry Russell — John Walter 
— Sir John Mowbray — Lord Lyons — Sir Roderick and Lady 
Murchison. 

My father married again/ His second wife was 
Katherine, daughter of Sir Nathaniel Dukinfield,^ 
Baronet. She was an excellent woman, managed her 
household admirably, and was very good to the poor, 
who thronged to her funeral when she died. She 
was a relic of the old style, saying 'goold,' 'Room,' 
(for Rome), 'sennight ' (for week), 'dish of tea.' About 
1848, my father, having independent means, gave up 

['"November 13, 1839. — At Heekfield, R. P. Smith, esq. 
M.D., to Katherine, daughter of the late Sir. Nath. Dukinfield, 
Bart." — Gentleman s Magazine for January, 1839: new series, 
vol. xi, p. 89.] 

[2 Sir Nathaniel Dukinfield was the fifth Baronet. His wife 
Katherine was a sister of John Warde, the noted fox-hunter, of 
Squerries in Kent. Sir Nathaniel died October the 20th, 1824. 
He was succeeded by his second son, John Lloyd Dukinfield ; he, 
again, in 1837, by his brother, the Rev. Henry Robert Dukinfield, 
(fourth son of Nathaniel) Vicar of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields — at 
whose house Mr. Goldwin Smith often stayed. — See the close of 
Chapter X.] 

12 




Dr. Richard Pritchard Smith. 

Goldwin Smith's Father. 



MORTIMER 13 

his profession, in which, however, he had been very 
successful, and retired to a country house at Mortimer, 
eight miles from Reading. The country there, though 
unrenowned, was lovely, with a rich view of English 
landscape from every eminence. The parish, while it 
was thoroughly rural, was social, containing several 
mansions. A new curate, when asked by the Bishop 
whether his cure was not very interesting, could reply, 
''Very interesting indeed, my Lord; I have seven 
parishioners who give fish and soup." Still, even here 
the lot of the labourer was hard, and his life of toil was 
too apt to end in the grim Workhouse which marred 
the beauty of the landscape. There was deep pathos 
in the melancholy complacency with which he looked 
forward to a decent funeral. I am glad that I stood on 
the platform with Joseph Arch,^ who had a good work 
to do and did it honestly, with simplicity, and well; 
though, like other agitators, he may have found it 
difficult to end the campaign when his battle had been 
won. 

The neighbourhood was not unhistoric. Hard by 
was Silchester City, with its massive walls, a monument 
of Imperial Rome. Our windows looked on a rising 
ground with trees which in their disposition still bore 

[1 Joseph Arch, the founder of the National Agricultural La- 
bourers' Union, and the strenuous advocate for the amelioration 
of the agricultural labourer's condition, was born at Barford, in 
Warwickshire, in 1826, the son of a shepherd : he visited Canada in 
1873 ; was President of the Birmingham Radical Union in 1883 ; 
entered Parliament in 1885.] 



14 REMINISCENCES 

the trace of a Plantagenet hunting-lodge. Old Upton 
Manor House, with its hiding-places for the hunted 
Jesuit or priest, recalled the religious struggles of the 
Tudor times. 

The farmers in those days were conservative. They 
ploughed with four horses, they voted with the Squire. 
They attended the Parish Church, from neighbourly 
feeling fully as much as on religious grounds. The 
labourer went to Church rather under pressure, prefer- 
ring the little Methodist Chapel in a sly corner of the 
Parish, the eyesore of the Parson and the Squire, 
though he looked to his Parish Church for christening, 
marriage, and burial. A change was fast coming over 
the relation between the farmer and the labourer. 
They now no longer eat at the same board. The farm- 
er's wife has become a lady with a piano, looking 
down on the farm-hands. What has wrought the 
change ? 

The Parson was the social, as well as the spiritual 
guide, and the almoner of the Parish. Much depended 
on him, especially where the Squire was not regularly 
resident. Our Parson, Harper, afterwards Bishop of 
Christ Church, New Zealand, was excellent. But in 
some neighbouring Parishes, especially, where the 
Living was in the gift of very close Colleges, and the 
Incumbent, truly so called, was an old Fellow of the 
College who had spent half his life boozing in Common 
Room while he was waiting for preferment, things 
were not so well. One of these spiritual Pastors going- 



MORTIMER 15 

up to a College festival and taking his Churchwarden 
with him was by the Churchwarden put to bed in his 
boots. I fancy that though the peasantry could not 
fail to be grateful for the services of such a Parson as 
Harper or Fraser/ there was always in their minds a 
lurking suspicion of the black police. 

Squires differed as much as Parsons. On the average 
they were not so good; for a man must be made of 
fine clay if he will conscientiously perform his duty 
when he is not obliged. Some Squires were agricul- 
tural improvers, builders of model cottages, just to 
the poor. Most of them, in those days, at all events, 
were resident; globe-trotting had not come in; the 
passion for life in pleasure-cities was not so strong as 
it is now. Nor had agricultural depression and loss 
of rents begun to drive the lord of the mansion from 
his home. Some years ago, revisiting England, I 
was the guest of an old friend in an historic house to 
which it was evident he had difficulty in clinging. In 
walking we came to a point where we looked across a 
valley to the new palace of a Jewish financier, and I 
could read my old friend's thoughts in his face. 

Rural society in England has been changing, and so 
have its outward features. Some years ago I com- 
missioned an artist in England to paint for me a series 
of drawings representing things as they had been in 
our neighbourhood when I was young. It was with 

P James Eraser (1818-1885), Bishop of Manchester. See page 
20 infra.] 



16 REMINISCENCES 

difficulty that an old homestead and thatched cottage 
were found. The Churches, all but one, had been 
restored by Ritualism, which, though a change back- 
ward, was a change. 

Country houses were beautiful; but in country 
society there was no enchantment. You rolled eight 
or ten miles to a large dinner party ; you talked horses 
and roads, heard perhaps after dinner some lady play 
her grand piece on the piano ; and rolled home again. 
There were county balls and, in Summer, archery 
meetings. Garden parties were not yet. For the 
men the cover-side was the Club. Next to the Lord- 
Lieutenant in importance was the Master of the Hounds. 
Our Master of the Hounds, when I was first at Mortimer, 
was Sir John Cope.^ He lived at Bramshill, a palace 
built by James I on the skirt of what was then a forest 
country as a hunting-box for his son. Prince Henry, 
whose guest Archbishop Abbot was when he acciden- 
tally killed the Keeper. Sir John was a type of his class. 
He hunted a wide country. In Winter his life was 
spent in the saddle; in Summer in training horses. 
He swore in good old style. "Sir John's pretty well 
in his swearing, sir," was his groom's answer to my 
father's inquiry after his health. Having no wife or 
child, he lived alone in that vast pile. At length he 
became paralyzed, and could only sit on the terrace to 
see the hounds meet. His last solace was to have them 

[1 Eleventh Baronet, second son of Sir John Cope, the sixth 
Baronet. He died in 1851.1 



MORTIMER 17 

called over by the Huntsman at his bedside. The 
end of the fox-hunter's life was apt to be dreary. I 
remember another of them who, having outlived his 
Melton set, living, like Cope, alone in a great mansion, 
and, like him, paralyzed, had no solace but shooting 
rabbits, which he did sitting in a cart on a music-stool, 
the stool enabling him to turn his paralyzed side enough 
for a shot. The rabbits, which he preserved, probably 
ate up a quarter of his rents. 

Not far off was the country of Assheton Smith, ^ 
paragon and pride of all fox-hunters, who hunted his 
own hounds when he was past seventy and performed 
marvellous feats of horsemanship, clearing a canal by 
leaping on and off a barge, leaping up hill a rail over 
which, when he had carried away the top bar, nobody 
could follow. His horses were so thoroughly trained 
to take everything at which he put them that one of 
them, when the rider was looking back after a lag 
hound, jumped with him into the middle of a pond. 
Assheton Smith went to hunt with old John Warde,^ 
a relative of my stepmother, called the Father of Fox- 
hunting, at Squerries, Warde's place in Kent. There 

[1 Thomas Assheton Smith, born 1776 ; educated at Eton and 
Oxford ; member of the Marylebone cricket club ; M.P. for Andover, 
1821-1832 ; and for Carnarvonshire, 1832-1834 ; master of the Quorn 
hounds, of the Burton hounds, the Penton hounds, and the Ted- 
worth hounds. Died in 1858.] 

[^ John Warde, of Squerries, in Kent, "one of the most celebrated 
men who was ever known in the hunting world." He was an 
M.F.H. for more than half a century. Hunted the Pytchley 
country from 1794 tiU 1808.] 



18 REMINISCENCES 

was a frost. But Warde had the hounds out to show 
them to his guest. Smith desired to see them find a fox. 
Warde consented, but said he must whip off at the 
edge of the cover. Smith gave a look which Warde 
understood, and said, ' ' If that's what you mean, get upon 
Blue Ruin " — Warde's favourite horse. Smith got upon 
Blue Ruin, had a run of twenty minutes over a frozen 
country, and killed. Warde deserved his sobriquet. 
Winter after winter he left his beautiful mansion to 
hunt some distant county, lodging where he could, 
and telling his wife that any room was large enough 
for a gentleman in which he could put on his stockings 
without opening the door. He would take at once into 
his service, without inquiry into character, any bold 
rider or good driver, sometimes to the dismay of his 
wife, a worthy woman, who tried to civilize these waifs. 
Looking out of window at Hatchett's in Piccadilly, he 
saw an urchin drive a four-in-hand coach up to the 
door in good style. He went down at once and took 
the urchin into his service. They were sitting in the 
drawing-room at Squerries one Sunday evening when 
the urchin was announced to say his Collect. Mrs. 
Warde, who was rather deaf, went into the next room 
to hear him. The door between the rooms being left 
ajar, they heard the urchin, instead of his Collect, 
repeat ''Dickory, Dickory Dock," etc., at the end of 
which he was praised for saying his Collect so well and 
rewarded with a shilling. 
There was a fellow-feeling among fox-hunters, at 



MORTIMER 19 

least among the veterans. My father found himself 
on his travels, in a city where he was not known, short 
of cash. He went to a Bank and tendered a cheque, 
saying that as he was unknown to them, he would call 
in a day or two for the money. But the Banker cashed 
the cheque at once, saying, ''I saw you cross the street; 
I knew from your gait that you were a fox-hunter; 
you are sure to be honest." I had myself once to meet 
in conference a Tory Peer, who evidently regarded me, 
as a Liberal, with some suspicion; but it happening to 
come out that I followed the hounds, his brow seemed 
to clear, and our conference proceeded happily. He 
probably thought that in any man who followed the 
hounds there must be a renmant of good. 

There were still hunting parsons. We had one in 
our parish, who, however, had given up his profession 
and was said only to put on a white tie when he was 
going to deal for a horse. There was another near us 
who, when sentiment grew stricter, was called to ac- 
count by the Bishop. ''Mr. Blank, I have not a word 
to say against your ministrations. But this is a tat- 
tling world, and they tell me that you hunt." ''It is 
indeed a tattling world, my Lord. They say your 
Lordship goes to the Queen's balls." "It is true that 
when I am invited by Her Majesty I do not think it 
proper to decline. But I am never in the room in 
which the dancing is going on." "That is just my case, 
my Lord. I have only one old mare, and I am never 
in the field in which the hounds are." 



20 REMINISCENCES 

James Fraser/ afterwards Bishop of Manchester, 
was rector of the next parish. He was no less first- 
rate as a horseman than he was afterwards as Bishop, 
the firm seat and light hand perhaps still coming into 
play. Kingsley ^ was to be met in the hunting-field. 
Perhaps this helped him with Sir John Cope, who was 
patron of the good living of Eversley. 

The farmers in those days could afford to share the 
sport, and, provided you kept clear of young wheat 
and beans, had no objection to your riding over their 
fields. This will hardly continue. Fox-hunting will 
share the general change. Already it has become rather 
artificial, and more like a steeplechase than a hunt, 
little notice being taken of the working of the hounds, 
which had been the great point with the fox-hunters 
of old. However, it gave me some merry days, and 
an addition to my rather scanty stock of health. As 
Freeman,' the scourge of fox-hunters, is gone, I may 
venture to say that few pleasures can equal a good run. 
To shooting I did not so much take. If I enjoyed a 
season in the Highlands, it was more for the air, the 
scenery, the heather, and the lunch when the ladies 
came out to meet us by the burn's side, than for the 
grouse. Not in Scotland, but in America, I once shot 

[1 Bishop of Manchester from 1870 till his death in 1885. Born 
in 1818.] 

[2 Charles Kingsley, Canon of Westminster, author of ."Alton 
Locke," "Westward Ho!" etc.] 

[^ Professor E. A. Freeman, the historian of the Norman Con- 
quest.] 



MORTIMER 21 

a deer. I did not kill it and they had to cut its throat. 
I shall never forget the pitiful look of its soft eyes. 
Never would I have shot at another deer. 

Not being a smoker — for they would not let us 
smoke at Eton and nobody smoked in my College — 
I have often wondered in what the pleasure of smoking 
consists. Is it an anodyne for the overwrought brain ? 
Wlienever there was a long check, out came the cigars. 
But those brains were not overwrought. 

We were in the next parish to Strathfieldsaye, the 
country-seat of the Duke of Wellington. The old 
Duke performed all the duties of life, and among them, 
when he could, that of country gentleman. When his 
work in town permitted, he came down, called on his 
neighbours, entertained them, and showed himself to 
his people. I turned up one of his ample visiting-cards 
with his ''F.M." the other day. There was a farm 
which ran into his estate and which he wished to buy ; 
but it was held at too high a price. One day on his 
arrival at Strathfieldsaye he was greeted by his bailiff 
with the glad tidings that the owner of the farm was 
in difficulties and was forced to sell at a low price. 
'^I don't want to take advantage of any man's diffi- 
culties," he replied; ''go and give him the fair price 
for his land." He rode with hounds, but had a loose 
military seat, and was sometimes thrown. He did 
not like this to be noticed, and was far from pleased 
when a farmer said to him, ''I see your Grace often 
parted from your saddle. Ye should tak oop your 



22 REMINISCENCES 

stirrups and ride as I do." He was tenacious of his 
character as sportsman, and was greatly hurt when, 
on account of his age, he ceased to be invited to the 
Prince Consort's shooting parties. He kept a hunting 
stud to the last, though he could ride no farther than 
the cover-side. He had not much taste, and when a 
Roman villa was opened on his estate and drew visitors 
he had it covered up, saying that if people wanted to 
see curiosities they must go to Italy. The Church at 
Strathfieldsaye was in the park and was an uneccle- 
siastical structure in a cruciform shape, with a cupola, 
bespeaking the fantastic taste of the last Lord of 
Strathfieldsaye. Gerald Wellesley, the Duke's nephew, 
who was Rector of Strathfieldsaye, had often begged 
the Duke in vain to build something more like a Church. 
One day, however, the Duke said, ''Gerald, I begin to 
think you are right. That building is not like a Church. 
I'll tell you what I'll do ; I'll put a steeple on it." The 
last time I saw the Duke was at the door of that Church. 
He was told that one of his old generals had just died. 
He looked grave for a moment as if he felt it to be a 
warning. Then he said, ''He was a very old man, 
though"; put his arm in that of Lady Douro; and 
trudged sturdily away. The Duke was cold and 
aristocratic, or rather undemocratic, for he did not think 
much of titular rank. His soldiers trusted rather than 
loved him. He took too little thought for their claims 
or for their comfort, and spoke of them with too little 
feeling. But he was a noble model of simple devotion 



MORTIMER 23 

to duty, perfectly free from vanity, at least while his 
mind remained unimpaired. A worshipper, it was said, 
went up to him and begged to be allowed to take the 
hand of the victor of Waterloo. ''Don't make a 
damned fool of yourself," was the hero's reply. 

\The second Duke I knew well, and was his guest at 
Strathfieldsaye. He had something of his father's 
features, though without the forehead, and a spark of 
the intellect, but nothing of the character. He was 
a mere sybarite. He was married to a beautiful woman, 
and neglected her. It was said that when she com- 
plained to the old Duke, who was very fond of her, 
the answer was, '' My dear, the Wellesleys have always 
been bad husbands." Of the history of the old Duke's 
marriage there were different versions, but no version 
was happy. The common one was that he had formed 
the engagement when the lady was in her beauty and 
had kept it as a point of honour when she was pitted 
with smallpox. This certainly was not true. The 
fact, I believe, was that she rejected him; that he 
went abroad, and on his return, when his love had 
cooled, was persuaded by a friend of the lady to offer 
himself again. But Wellington, the soul of duty, was 
not warm-hearted, or likely to be a very loving mate. 

' Punctual in the performance of all the duties of life, 
the old Duke of Strathfieldsaye went regularly to 
Church. He had a gallery to himself, with a fireplace, 
the fire in which, growing deaf, he was apt to poke 
rather loud. 



24 REMINISCENCES 

In a paddock at Strathfieldsaye, "Copenhagen," 
Wellington's charger at Waterloo, ended his days. ''A 
low-shouldered brute," the second Duke irreverently 
called him to my father. He was a half Arab, and the 
breed, I believe, is apt to be low in the shoulder. The 
formation, I fancied, was perceptible in the Equestrian 
Statue which stood over the arch on Constitution Hill, 
and which, grotesque as its position was, the old Duke 
did not like to have removed. 

^ The second Duke showed me a collection of likenesses 
of Napoleon; I told him there was one he had not; 
a bust taken at the time of the Egyptian expedition, 
differing from the rest, as I thought, by showing some- 
thing more of enthusiasm and less of the hard look of 
settled ambition. It was in possession of Jerome 
Bonaparte at Baltimore. The Duke asked me when 
I returned to America to get him a photograph. The 
first attempt was a failure. But afterwards Jerome 
showed himself a genuine Bonaparte by the develop- 
ment of a cancerous tumour, of which he died. A 
photograph of the tumour was taken for submission to 
physicians at Paris. The photographer then got a good 
impression of the bust, which I suppose is still at Strath- 
fieldsaye. 

It was difficult to find any one who had seen Napo- 
leon. I made that remark at a dinner party, when a 
voice near me said, ''I saw Napoleon." It was Lord 
Russell/ who had paid Napoleon a visit at Elba, ac- 

[1 Lord John Russell, first Earl Russell.] 



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is. 



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MORTIMER 25 

counts of which are already in print. I asked Lord 
Russell whether the common portraits were like. He 
said they were. I asked him whether there was not 
in the face that hard look of selfish ambition. This he 
had not noticed; but he said, and repeated with em- 
phasis, that there was something very evil in the eye. 
When Lord Russell spoke of war. Napoleon's eye flashed, 
showing, what was certainly the fact, that the lust of 
war was with him in itself a ruling passion. It is diffi- 
cult to divine what else could have led him to invade 
Russia. He evidently had no intention of restoring 
Poland. He was immensely fat. Lord Russell said, and 
this might account for his fatal lack of activity in his 
last campaign. 

Guizot told me that he had seen Napoleon at a win- 
dow in the Tuileries. Brougham used to tell an anec- 
dote of him which he said he had at first hand. In his 
flight from Waterloo he showed his depression. The 
member of his staff who was riding by his side thought 
he might be sorrowing over his loss of so many old 
companions-in-arms, and tried to comfort him by saying 
that Wellington also must have lost many old com- 
panions-in-arms. ''He has not lost the battle," was 
the only reply. 

At Three-Mile-Cross, not far off, dwelt Miss Mitford,' 
the authoress whose "Belford Regis," portraying under 
feigned names the characters of Reading, amused in 

[iMary Russell Mitford, author of "Our Village," etc. 1707- 
1855.1 



26 REMINISCENCES 

its day. She had won a large sum in a lottery. It 
was squandered by a worthless father, to whom she 
remained a most devoted daughter. Her great friend 
and literary ally was Talfourd/ whose "Ion," though 
now forgotten, is not without classical merit. 

Another notable neighbour at Mortimer was Sir 
Henry Russell ^ of Swallowfield, a retired Anglo-Indian 
of distinction who had long been the Resident at Hyder- 
abad. He was a fine specimen of the old Anglo-Indian 
school. It being in his days a six months' voyage from 
England to India, he had passed his life in Hindostan 
and had learned to identify himself with the people. 
No such word as ''Nigger" ever passed his lips. He 
seemed to regard a Hindoo gentleman as his equal, 
though of a different race and religion. Missionaries 
he abhorred. ''No gentleman," he said, "ever changed 
his politics or his religion." He was a man of refined 
tastes, a good writer, and a model of urbanity. When 
he was dying his medical man pressed on him a useless 
draught, telling him it would do him good. "I am sure 
it will," he said, "if it comes from your hand." He 
had brought away from India a healthy frame, as he 
said anyone might who would be temperate and careful. 
He was an active local improver and a practical pioneer 
of the reform of the Poor Law. 

At Bearwood, not far off, lived the mortal enemy of 

[1 Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, judge and author, M.P. for Reading, 
1835, 1837, and 1841. Born in 1795, died in 1854.] 

P Sir Henry Russell, second Baronet, eldest son of Sir Henry 
Russell, the first Baronet. Born 1783 ; died 1852.] 



MORTIMER 27 

the new Poor Law, John Walter/ of The Times. The 
mighty Radical, as he then was, had pitched his tent 
among Tory Squires, to whom his name was a terror 
and with whom he for some time lived at war. He 
had a very strong temper, was firm in friendship, and 
inflexible in hate. Wlien he was rebuked for the ran- 
cour with which he assailed a public man who he thought 
had betrayed him, and reminded that the Bible told 
you to forgive your enemies, his answer was, ''Yes; but 
it doesn't tell you to forgive your friends." My father 
was in treaty for the purchase of a house which had a 
road running too near it. x\pplication had been made 
at Quarter Sessions for permission to turn the road. 
The vendor happened to be a particular enemy of 
Walter. Time after time Walter came with the only 
two local allies which he had to Quarter Sessions, and 
opposed the turning of the road. My father, happening 
to meet him, asked him what could be the motive of 
his opposition. It turned out that he had fancied that 
the turning of the road was a condition of the purchase 
and that the sale was hung up on that account. Learn- 
ing that he was mistaken, he ceased to oppose the turn- 
ing of the road. 

In Mortimer lived Sir John Mowbray,^ the high Tory 

[1 This was the third John Walter of The Times. He was M.P. 
for Nottingham and for Berkshire. Born 1818 ; died 1894.] 

[- The Right Honourable Sir John Robert Mowbray, the first 
Baronet, was the only son of Robert Stribling Cornish, of Exeter. He 
assumed the surname of Mowbray upon his marriage. Born in 1815 ; 
died 1899.1 



28 REMINISCENCES 

member for the University of Oxford. His high Tory- 
ism did not interfere with our friendship, which was 
kept up by correspondence when I had left England. 
The value of the English rule which forbids politics 
to interfere with social relations is felt when one's 
lot is cast where that rule does not prevail and people 
feel at liberty to indulge their personal propensities 
under cover of political opinion. Mowbray was very 
interesting, for he was an epitome of the House of 
Commons. 

We had visitors at Mortimer ; one of them was Admi- 
ral, afterwards Lord, Lyons,^ a man of keen intelli- 
gence and thorough knowledge of the world, as well as a 
great naval commander. He had been Ambassador ^ at 
Athens, and told some good stories of those days. 
There was to be a Court Ball. A British Consul and 
his family came to Athens for it. Lyons lunched with 
them on the day. A little boy asked for something on 
the table. Being refused, he asked for it again, threat- 
ening to tell if they would not give it to him. Again 
they refused. He flourished his spoon, and shouted, 
''Grandmamma's dead." It had been agreed to keep 
the old lady's demise quiet till after the Ball. Lyons 
gave a diplomatic dinner to propitiate an offended 
Oriental. There was an iced pudding, which being 
taken to the guest of honour first, he, seeing something 

[1 Edmund Lyons, first Baron Lyons of Christehurch. Born 
'7 1890 ; died in 1858.] 

\ [2 "Minister Plenipotentiary," I think this should be.] 



MORTIMER 29 

unctuous, helped himself to it and put a large piece in 
his mouth. He jumped up, furious, spluttering, and 
rushed out of the room. Lyons followed him and found 
him implacable. His mouth was burnt; it was an 
abominable trick ; else why had the pudding been taken 
to him first ? He went away unappeased, and diplo- 
macy missed its mark. 

Other visitors were Sir Roderick and Lady Murchi- 
son.^ Sir Roderick was a cavalry officer who had taken 
to science, and being rich became its Amphitryon. 
Lady Murchison was very bright. She and I went to 
see Maple Durham, a fine Elizabethan house near Read- 
ing. Across the grounds there was a public path from 
which there was a good view of the mansion, to the lord 
of which the path, trenching on his privacy, was an 
eyesore. We were standing on this path to look at 
the house when a servant came up and said, "Strangers 
are not allowed to stand here." "Are they not?" said 
Lady Murchison; "then will you kindly fetch me a 
chair." Sir Roderick had been invited by the Czar 
Nicholas to survey the mining region of the Urals. 
He became intimate with the Czar, and testified, there 
is no doubt truly, to the Czar's perfect good will to 
England. 

I cannot help mentioning my father's household as 
almost a relic of old times. It was a household in the 



1 Sir Roderick Impey Murcliison, first Baronet. He published 
"The Silurian System " in 1838. Director General of the Geologi- 
cal Survey in 1855. Born in 1792 ; died 1871.] 



30 REMINISCENCES 

true sense of the term. In it were five upper servants 
whose united terms of service with my father, my step- 
mother, or both, were two hundred and thirty years. 
They thoroughly identified themselves with the family 
and its interests, and when the household was broken 
up, took their pensions, and went into no other service. 
I am afraid they were not highly educated; I doubt 
whether they could have produced a grammatical 
letter among them. The old coachman, who had been 
with my father more than fifty years, could neither 
read nor write. He was excellent in his calling, and 
not without refinement of feeling. When his mistress 
was dying, he sent her up a rose as his farewell. Grow- 
ing very old, he had a fit upon the box. They wanted 
him to give up the reins, promising him as a pension 
his full wages and his house. But he said that if he 
ceased to drive the family he would die; the medical 
man said he believed he would. The master and 
mistress seldom left home, and treated the domestics 
not as servants, but as members of a household. House- 
holds are hardly possible now; in America it seems 
almost unexampled. 

Who now lives in the old house, thinking nothing 
of its former inmates ? Who strolls beneath those elms 
in the summer evening, and looks over the lawn to the 
farm on the hill which marks the site of the Plantagenet 
hunting-scat? Whose is now the room from the win- 
dow of which, rising to my early studies, I used to see 
the moon and the morning star together in the sky? 



MORTIMER 31 

If you wish to give yourself a fit of the blues, you can- 
not do better than think of the haunts of your youth 
and call up the forms once familiar which have long 
since become dust. 



CHAPTER III 

SCHOOL 

1831-1840 

School — School-life — Eton — Dr. Goodall, the Provost— The 
Head Master, Hawtrey — William IV — Queen Victoria — 
Schoolmates. 

To return to Friar Street, Reading, and the little 
boy. At eight years old I was sent, as the custom 
then was, to a boarding school. Being sickly, I was 
sent to one on the Downs, near Bath, for the sake of 
the air. The air did me good ; so perhaps did the idle- 
ness. The master was an ex- Lieutenant of Marines 
who had taken Orders. He knew little, and did not 
attempt to teach us much. School was over at one. 
After dinner we went to the playing-field or were taken 
to the Downs, where we collected fossils, butterflies, 
and plants. My little brain rested, my health im- 
proved ; perhaps I owe it to those fallow years that, 
having set out with a very weak constitution, I am able 
to do some work at eighty-four. I sometimes say 
that if I have outlived four successors in my Chair of 
History at Oxford, I owe it to having been at two idle 
schools, as both Monkton Farley and Eton were. 
Speaking seriously, are not the brains of children 

32 



SCHOOL 33 

overworked ? I suffered, however, from want of early 
grounding. 

Though the school was expensive, our fare was such 
as any English boy, still more any American boy, at 
the present day would regard with disgust. For break- 
fast we had three squares of bread and butter and a 
mug of tea. For dinner we had one helping of meat 
and one of pudding. The supper was the same as the 
breakfast. However, in five years I never was in bed 
for sickness, nor do I remember that any one of my 
schoolmates was. 

The custom of sending children to boarding-schools 
was, however, rather cruel. The child had not a little 
to suffer by severance from his home ; his home affec- 
tions were deadened; he was early familiarized and 
too often indoctrinated with evil. A boarding-school 
is seldom free from bullying, which makes strong boys 
tyrants and weak boys cowards. An experienced 
Oxford tutor said that his best pupils came from home 
with a good day-school ; the next best from the great 
public schools; those of the third grade from private 
boarding-schools ; and the worst of all from the private 
tutors. It is just to the private tutors to say that to 
them the desperate cases were generally turned over 
from the public schools. The home as well as the day- 
school must be good. 

The names and faces of my schoolmates at Monkton 
Farley are as fresh in my memory as if I had just left 
the school; while I forget the names and faces of 



34 REMINISCENCES 

people to whom I was introduced yesterday. What is 
memory? What is it that stores up these myriads of 
impressions and retains them for seventy years ? It is 
of course something physical, since the receptive or 
retentive power of the retina is diminished, as I know 
too well, by old age. The connections are not less 
mysterious than the retention. I was travelling the 
other day in a railway carriage, when suddenly there 
occurred to my mind the name Heydukoff} With great 
difficulty, after some time, I recollected that it was the 
name of a hotel at Dresden where I had once dined in 
1847 to taste a particular dish. Nothing had happened 
since to recall the incident to my mind ; nor was there 
anything in the surroundings to suggest it. Here is 
one riddle for physiology still to solve. Another, per- 
haps, is the spontaneous action of the imagination in 
sleep, originating scenes and incidents which have had 
no counterpart in our waking life. But this by the 
way. 

Still there is a glamour over the memories of our 
school days. Forty years after leaving Monkton 
Farley I was standing in a crowd at Dublin when I 
was touched upon the shoulder, and, turning round, 
was accosted by one of my schoolmates whom I had not 
seen or heard of since we parted at Monkton Farley 
school. I think I never enjoyed an evening more than 

[1 H. Heydukoff was a "Restaurateur" in Dresden at Frauen- 
strasse 12 (Palace of Cosel) in 1848; at Frauengasse 10 in 1849; 
and at Liittichaustrasse 23, part, in 1850 and 1851.] 



SCHOOL 35 

the one which, after our mutual recognition, I spent 
with him at his house. 

From a private school I went to Eton, trembling, 
for I was still far from strong and did not know what I 
might have to encounter in a great public school. 
My fears were at once dispelled. Fagging was merely 
one of the antiquities of the place, a remnant of the 
days when the young used to wait upon their elders, 
when the page of noble birth served for the company 
in hall. In my time hardly anything remained of it 
but the custom of laying for an upper boy his breakfast 
and tea things, in return for which he owed you his 
advice and protection. Bullying I neither encountered 
nor witnessed. Bullying was mean, and Eton boys 
were gentlemen ; I enjoyed perfect freedom; played at 
games or not as I chose ; and ''sapped," that is studied, 
when I took to it, without the slightest molestation. 
Perhaps if by sapping I had forced others to sap, I might 
not have been so free from molestation. 

A curious institution was the unreformed Eton of 
those days. Nothing was taught but classics; even 
mathematics were not part of the school course, nor 
was the mathematical master a member of the staff. 
It was said that when a mathematical teacher was 
appointed he asked the Provost whether he was, like 
the other masters, to wear a gown. ''That is as you 
please." "Are the boys to take off their hats to me?" 
"That is as they please." Our lessons were, as they 
had probably been for centuries, thirty lines, neither 



36 REMINISCENCES 

more nor less, of Homer, Virgil, Horace, Poetae Graeci, 
or Scriptores Romani. In the sixth form we read a 
Greek play. The thing most prized was Latin com- 
position, especially in verse. If you wrote a good set 
of verses, they were sent to the Provost, the Head 
Master read them out to the class, and an asterisk was 
put after your name in the school list. This would 
now be deemed waste of time. For most of the boys 
it was so then ; the few became very familiar with the 
Latin poets and acquired form in composition. A 
great London editor told me that the only members 
of his staff who wrote in good form from the beginning 
had practised Latin verse. Exercises were done out 
of school, and there was no scruple about getting them 
done for you or using old copies. On my arrival I 
was offered by the servant of the boarding-house a col- 
lection of old copies, indexed, so that you might be 
pretty sure of finding something available when the 
subject for themes or verses had been given out in 
school. 

There were one regular whole holiday and one half 
holiday in every week. Saints' days were also holi- 
days. You were never in school more than three- 
quarters of an hour at a time. In morning-school you 
said by heart the Greek or Latin poetry which you had 
read in class. This was about the hardest part of the 
work, which, as a whole, was really little more than a 
formality. 

To wider and more serious study of the classics, 



SCHOOL 37 

however, we were spurred in the higher part of the 
school by annual competition for the Newcastle Scholar- 
ship and medal, founded by the famous old anti-reform 
Duke,^ who, when taxed with coercion of his tenants 
in elections, asked whether he had not a right to do as 
he pleased with his own. Through an oversight on 
the part of the Trustees the medal was not struck for 
forty years. When the oversight was discovered, and 
the winners, myself one of them, were hunted up, it 
was seen how wide had been the divergence of the paths 
in life of those whose starting-place had been the same. 
One of them had turned Jesuit, and by the rule of his 
Order was incapable of holding property in his medal. 
Not a few received their mark of classical distinction 
on the other side of the Styx. When one has lived 
long, it is curious to look back to the beginnings of so 
many careers and compare the expectations formed 
of them with the careers and their close. 

Many of the boys in those days were not destined 
for the University. Many went into the army, espe- 
cially into the Guards or the Light Cavalry regiments, 
the diplomatic service, the Royal Household, and the 
other pleasant pastures of aristocracy before competi- 
tion. They still got commissions in the army young, 
though not so young as they once had. I have seen a 
letter written by an Eton boy, one of the Bathursts, 
who had got his commission at fourteen and gone 

[1 Henry Pelham Fiennes Pelham Clinton, fourth Duke of New- 
castle; 1785-1851.] 



38 REMINISCENCES 

straight to Waterloo. It ran: '^ Dear Mamma: Cousin 
Tom and I are all right. I never saw anything like it 
in my life." Eton in those days was altogether very 
much wrapped up in herself, and thought less than she 
probably does now of University honours. My brother 
Arthur, who went with me to Eton, was destined for 
the army. I was myself nearly going into the Indian 
Civil Service. 

Outside of the school course, however, there was in 
that little conomonwealth a good deal of intellectual 
activity. Many of the boys came from political homes 
and took a lively interest in public questions. ''Pop," 
as the Debating Society, from being held over a ginger- 
beer shop, was called, was very vivacious, and bred 
orators, Gladstone among the number; though that 
great man's eloquence lost by practice in debating 
clubs at Eton and Oxford in freshness of style part of 
what it gained in fluency. 

Eton conservatism was grotesque. The nominal 
''bounds" of former days were preserved. In reality 
it was understood that there were no bounds and that 
between school hours, until "lock-up," you might go 
where you pleasc^d, only that if you met a master out- 
side the nominal bounds you had to "shirk," that is, 
to make a show of keeping out of sight, while he was 
bound in courtesy not to see you. The river was out 
of bounds, though not only was boating the regular 
and recognized amusement, but we were all required 
to learn to swim. On Sunday afternoon the Castle 



SCHOOL 39 

Terrace, where the King ^ showed himself and the 
band played, was in bounds, while the way to it was 
out of bounds. Eton rowed against Westminster at 
Datchet. The match was on a Saint's day after after- 
noon chapel. There was barely time for it between 
the chapel and the evening calling-over — '^absence," 
as it was curiously called. But to put off the calling- 
over for an hour would have been a disturbance of 
the spheres. So in chapel the reader rushed through 
the service; the choristers, for an anthem, sang three 
Hallelujahs; while the Head Master sat in his stall, 
looking perfectly unconscious that anything unusual 
was at hand. 

Games were still games when Waterloo was won on 
the playing-fields at Eton. "Athletics," with all their 
paraphernalia, were still in the womb of time. An 
Eton boy would have stared if you had spoken to him 
of gate-money. Nor was anybody killed or maimed 
at football. 

The College, that is, the Foundation, is now, since 
the admission has been by merit, the pick of the school. 
In those days it was in a low state, the nominations 
being used by the Provost and Fellows as mere patron- 
age. The Collegers were ''Tugs," disrated by the 
Oppidans, pigging in a vast and murky den called Long 
Chamber, wearing stuff gowns, and not allowed to come 
on the Oppidan's part of the river. They went off by 
seniority to Fellowships at King's College, Cambridge, 
[1 William IV.] 



40 REMINISCENCES 

and from the Fellows at King's, in deference to an evil 
tradition, all the Eton masters were taken. The 
ablest of the Fellows went off to professions, and the 
school got what was left. Some of our masters were 
very incompetent. I was for two years in class under 
one who, though he was a good old soul and I love his 
memory, knew no more than I did. They have hap- 
pily changed all that. The Foundation has been 
thoroughly reformed. It has been provided with better 
lodgings than "Long Chamber"; the appointments to 
it are made by examination ; and there even seems to 
be a danger of its absorbing too much of the best intel- 
lect of the school and leaving the dough without the 
leaven. 

There was one master who had not been a Fellow 
of King's, but having married the daughter of the Head 
Master, Keate,^ had been brought in first to fill a gap, 
and then permanently retained, though not without 
discreditable manifestations of jealousy on the part 
of some of his colleagues. Edward Coleridge ^ was 
nephew of the poet and philosopher, brother of the 
judge, uncle of the Lord Chief Justice. I had the good 
fortune to be his pupil and board in his house. A 
deep scholar he was not ; but he was a maker of schol- 

[* John Keate, head master of Eton from 1809-1834. Bom 
1773 ; died 1852.) 

p Son of James Coleridge, of Tiverton, Devon ; born in 1801 ; 
Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford, 1823-1826 ; Assistant Master at 
Eton, 1824-1850 ; Lower Master, 1850-1857 ; Fellow, 1857 ; Vicar 
of Maple Durham, Berks, 1862 until his death on the 18th of May, 
1883. — Alumni Oxonienses, s.v.] 



SCHOOL 41 

ars. He inspired where he could not instruct. He 
loved his pupil-room, and gave himself with his whole 
heart to its service. His pupils requited his affection, 
and to have been ''in my tutor's house" has always 
been among them a cherished memory and a bond. 
Coleridge was the Arnold of Eton, so far as Eton could 
have an Arnold, and there was sympathy between him 
and the Arnold of Rugby. 

Twice every Sunday, twice every holiday or Saint's 
day, and on every Saturday afternoon, to kindle the 
flame of piety in our souls, we were mustered at choral 
service in the College Chapel. Only on Sunday did 
we take Prayer-Books or even affect to join in the 
service. Our attendance on other days was a mere 
roll-call, two or three masters attending to keep order 
and prevent our talking too loud or too visibly munch- 
ing candies. On Sundays the Fellows, who were super- 
annuated masters, preached, and the sermons of some 
of them were not only platitudinous, but grotesque. 
Old Plumptre ^ was incomparable. He had a Puri- 
tanic habit of putting everything into Scripture lan- 
guage. When Owen the Socialist had, to Plumptre's 
horror, been introduced by Lord Melbourne at Court, 
he had ''made Blastus, the King's Chamberlain, 
his friend." Audible laughter would go round the 
juvenile congregation, and I have seen the Masters 

[* Frederick Charles Plumptre, Fellow of University College, 
Oxford, from 1817 to 1836 ; Tutor in 1820 ; Dean and Bursar in 1821 ; 
Vice-Chaneellor of the University, 1848-1851 ; and Master of his 
College from 1836 till his death in 1870.] 



42 REMINISCENCES 

themselves, unable to keep their gravity, ducking 
behind their stalls. Once Plumptre's text was 
''Woman." It introduced an invective against the 
worship of the Virgin as divine. There was an- 
other Fellow and preacher who wore a very high and 
stiff neck-cloth in which every other sentence was 
lost, while the alternate sentence was delivered in the 
shrillest tone. If, therefore, some of us were want- 
ing in love of our venerable and beautiful liturgy, 
or were otherwise undevout, we were not without 
an excuse. 

The real religion of Eton was that of the Classical 
Pantheon. It was said that once a boy, having some 
spiritual perplexities, was simple enough to commu- 
nicate them to the Head Master. The Head Master, 
when he had recovered from the shock, told him that 
he would give him an order on the bookseller for a 
Greek Testament with notes. 

'The masters, however, did try to make the boys 
''gentlemen," a character rather narrow and savouring 
of caste, yet not worthless. Eton boys as a rule were 
idle, nor was their moral standard high; there was 
nothing in them like the moral aim or earnestness of 
Arnold's pupils. But there was in them a genuine dis- 
like of anything mean or cowardly. Their conversa- 
tion was clean; they did not swear, or talk filth. I 
believe it may be said that they were generally ashamed 
to lie, and would not have lied to a master. Propriety 
and cleanliness in dress were strictly enforced. Tall 



SCHOOL 43 

hats, white ties, black swallowtail coats, and low shoes, 
not boots, were the regulation costume. 

The Provost, Dr. Goodall,^ was outwardly and in- 
wardly antique. He wore knee-breeches, a cassock, 
shoes with buckles, and a wig. Against change of any 
kind he set his face. He would allow no improvements 
in the school course or in the appointment of masters. 
He would not allow a curtain to be hung over the door 
of the chapel, though half the sixth form, whose seats 
were near the door, were laid up with colds. By his 
conamand of the Eton vote in Parliament, he forced 
the Great Western Railway out of its course, and its 
eccentricities between Slough and Windsor are a monu- 
ment of his love of the ancient ways. It was said, and 
was hardly incredible, that when his letters were 
brought by rail he would not open them till they ought 
to have come by stage. He was autocrat, and under 
him there could be no reform. His successor, Provost 
Hodgson,^ had been a boon companion of Byron and 
a translator of Juvenal. It might have been thought 
that he was a liberal and a reformer. Instead of this, 
he opposed all reform, even the proposal pressed by the 
Head Master, Hawtrey,^ to give the school a free choice 
of masters instead of being confined to the Fellows of 
King's. 

[^ Joseph Goodall, became Head Master in 1801, and Provost in 

1809. Died in 1840.] 

P Francis Hodgson, Provost from 1840 till his death in 1852.] 
[' Edward Craven Hawtrey, Assistant Master 1814—1834 ; Head 

Master 1834-1852 ; Provost 1852-1862.] 



44 REMINISCENCES 

Dr. E. Craven Hawtrey, the Head Master, was also a 
singular figure, though in a very different way. As 
Eton was contrasted with the high moral and religious 
tension of Arnold's Rugby, so was Hawtrey contrasted 
with Arnold. He was a man of the world, a man of 
fashion, at home not only in London but in Parisian 
society, a sumptuous Amphitryon, an elegant but far 
from deep scholar, a writer of little verses in several 
languages, a collector of choice books in superb bindings, 
a connoisseur in wines, a dandy in dress. I see him now, 
calling over the roll in his rich silk gown and cassock, 
his gold eyeglass pendent from a heavy golden chain, 
his foot, which was his only beauty, put forward in 
his patent-leather boot; now sitting in the sixth class 
schoolroom and commending some happy rendering 
of a phrase in Horace or dilating on the remarkable 
body of the ancient wines. His features were the 
delight of the caricaturist, and little wooden busts of 
him were in demand. He was a man of sense, and would 
have made reforms if the Provost would have let him. 
He did get so far as to introduce into the work of one 
class the filling up of a skeleton map, which, with an- 
swers to a paper of geographical questions, we handed 
in as an act of piety on Sunday afternoon. He did not 
rule with a very firm hand, but floated along with 
tact and ease. He was in manners and sentiments 
unquestionably a gentleman; for the Eton of those 
days that was enough. 

Foreigners of distinction often visited Eton as 



SCHOOL 45 

Hawtrey's guests. I saw in the schoolyard Daniel 
Webster/ with his brow and port of Jove. I saw 
Soult/ who looked the war-worn veteran that he was. 
Soult, when the boys recognized him and rushed to 
him, was half afraid that they were going to mob 
their old enemy, and was surprised at receiving a 
British ovation. 

Old William IV, the sailor King, was very fond of 
Eton, and used to come to our rowing matches and to 
the procession of boats on the fourth of July. On 
Election Day, at the end of the Summer term, the sixth 
form had to recite in Court-dress passages from Greek 
or Latin authors, ''speeches," they were called, before 
the assembled school and guests. On one of those 
occasions the Queen ^ was present. At her side stood 
the Prince Consort, with features regular and handsome, 
but wanting in expression. Canonized for his virtues 
when he died, the Prince while he lived was unpopular 
on account of his manner, especially with women. 
Englishmen will bear a high manner in high people, 
though a frank manner pleases them more ; but Prince 
Albert had in fatal perfection the condescending man- 

[* The American statesman, orator, and lawyer. It was probably 
when he was negotiating the Ashburton Treaty between Great 
Britain and the United States that he visited Eton. Born 1782; 
died 1852.] 

P Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult, one of Napoleon's Marshals ; 
commander-in-chief in Spain. Ambassador Extraordinary to Great 
Britain at the coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838, when, probably, 
he visited Eton. Born in 1769; died in 1851.] 

[* Queen Victoria, of course ; who succeeded William IV in 1837.] 



46 REMINISCENCES 

ner of German royalty. Happily he did not transmit 
it to his son.^ 

Nothing is to me more odious than the pageantry of 
death. I would have the tenantless clay mingle in 
the simplest as well as in the quickest way with the 
general frame. Yet the funeral of a Royal Duchess 
which I attended as one of the Eton delegation was a 
striking sight. St. George's Chapel at night, hung with 
black, lines of Life Guards holding flambeaux, the 
approach of the corpse heralded by the Dead March, 
the procession up the Chapel with the female mourners 
in black lace veils reaching to their feet, certainly 
formed an impressive scene. 

I ran among a crowd of Eton boys behind Victoria's 
carriage from Eton to Windsor on the night of her 
marriage,^ and I saw her more than once upon the 
Castle Terrace. She was dumpy but comely, with a 
fresh complexion, low forehead, receding chin, and 
prominent eyes. She had in short the features of her 
family. Notwithstanding her dumpiness, she acquired 
a queenly bearing. In everything, I suspect, she was 
a true granddaughter of George III. In the earlier 
years of her reign her very natural attachment to Lord 
Melbourne ^ as her political monitor and guardian, and 
her consequent connection with his party, exposed her 

[* Afterwards His Majesty Edward VII.] 

[2 February the 10th, 1840.] 

[' William Lamb, second Viscount Melbourne, Prime Minister 
from 1835 tiU 1841 ; Queen Victoria's chief adviser. Born in 1779 ; 
died 1848.] 



SCHOOL 47 

to the jealousy of the other side. In her later years 
political and social reaction exalted her into their fetish. 
She was made the object of extravagant adulation, and 
an age full of intellect, discovery, great writers, power- 
ful statesmen, and momentous events has been stamped 
with the name of a good and domestically exemplary, 
but in no way extraordinary woman. In politics she 
evidently became at last a thorough Stuart, enraged 
at the honour paid to Garibaldi. 

\Among my schoolmates at Eton were John Duke 
Coleridge,^ Lord Chief Justice that was to be, in " Pop," 
as afterwards at the Bar, noted for his silvery eloquence ; 
Lord Farrer ^ who became Permanent Under-Secretary 
of the Board of Trade, and, though he had inherited 
an ample fortune, continued in the public service; 
Henry Hallam,^ who entered on the same day with me ; 
and William Johnson,^ who afterwards took the name 
of Cory. Henry Hallam, like Arthur, had ''the bow 
of Michael Angelo " on his forehead. Like Arthur he 

[1 First Baron Coleridge. He was the chief Counsel for the 
defendants in the celebrated "Tichborne ease" in 1871-1872. 
Born 1820 ; died 1894.] 

[2 Thomas Henry Farrer, first Baron Farrer. Born in 1819 ; 
died in 1899.] 

P Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, younger son of Henry Hallam the 
historian, brother of the Arthur Hallam who was the subject of 
Tennyson's "In Memoriam." He went to Trinity College, Cam- 
bridge, and was one of the "Apostles." Born in 1824; died 1850.] 

[^ William Johnson, afterwards Cory, was an assistant master at 
Eton from 1845 till 1872. He wrote a "Guide to Modern English 
History"; also several volumes of poems — amongst the best 
known of which, perhaps, is his "lonica." Born in 1823; died in 
1892.1 



48 REMINISCENCES 

was wonderfully precocious in thoughtfulness and 
culture, owing the culture to the circle in which at his 
father's house he had lived. Wliether either of the 
brothers had genius as well as thoughtfulness and cul- 
ture was a question left unsolved, since both died 
young and under circumstances curiously alike ; each of 
them suddenly, when he was on a tour with his father. 
Of William Johnson great things were expected. We 
fancied that he would be a sage not unlike his illustrious 
namesake. The result was distinction, both educa- 
tional and literary, which has won a niche in the Na- 
tional Biography. But it was not a reproduction of 
Johnson, whom we cannot imagine writing lyrics of 
effusive affection on a favourite pupil. 
' Our mode of life was favourable to friendship. We 
dined in the boarding-house hall, but took breakfast 
and tea in our own rooms with messmates of our own 
choice. Each boy had a room of his own, furnished as 
a sitting-room, but with a press bed. I think it was a 
civilizing arrangement. 

It is something, as I have always thought, to be 
brought up in a place of beauty and historic memories. 
All that could be done for the young heart in that way 
was done by Eton, with its ancient quadrangle, in the 
middle of which stood the founder's statue, its great 
grey chapel, its playing-fields and their ancient elms 
stretching along the side of the river, and the class- 
room on the panels of which boyish hands had carved 
what afterwards became historic names; while from 



SCHOOL 49 

the other side looked down the castle-palace of the 
old English Kings. 

I am now in my seventeenth year/ I doff the regu- 
lation dress of Eton, don the black tie, which was the 
symbol of emancipation, take leave of the Head Master, 
placing my leaving- fee on the* table, while I receive 
his parting gift of a book, and come away, looking ea- 
gerly forward into the doubtful vista of the life, then 
opening, now at its close. 

[1 1840. He matriculated at Oxford on the 26th of May, 1841.1 



CHAPTER IV 

OXFORD 

1841-1845 

Dean Gaisford — Magdalen — Magdalen Demys — Martin Routh 
— Fellows of Magdalen — The Tractarian Movement — The 
Curriculum — Oxford Life — Contemporaries. 

I MATRICULATED at Christ Church, and was thus 
brought into brief contact with Dean Gaisford.^ The 
Dean was called the Athenian Blacksmith, and both 
parts of the nickname were well deserved. He was a 
first-rate Greek scholar, though I venture to think 
that as an editor of the classics he adheres somewhat 
slavishly to certain manuscripts. But for his manners 
his friends could only say that his heart was good; 
which, as an autopsy was not possible, could give little 
satisfaction to those who suffered from his rudeness. 
"Cultivate classical literature, which not only enables 
you to look down with contempt on those who are less 
learned than yourself, but often leads to places of con- 
siderable emolument, even in this world." Such was 
the comic analysis of one of Gaisford's University 
sermons, and probably it was scarcely a caricature. 

[* Thomas Gaisford ; appointed Regius Professor of Greek at 
Oxford in 1812; Dean of Christ Church from 1831 till his death in 
1855 ; edited many of the classics. Born in 1779.] 

50 



OXFORD 51 

^ However, from Christ Church I was soon transferred 
to Magdalen, where, at the instance of my good friend 
Frederick Bulley,^ afterwards President, I was nomi- 
nated to a Demyship by the President, Martin Routh.^ 
My Magdalen, like my Eton, was a relic of the past. 
It had forty Fellowships, thirty Demyships or Scholar- 
ships, and a revenue of forty thousand pounds a year, 
besides its rich dower of historic beauty. It took no 
Commoners, and its educational output in my time 
was eight or ten Undergraduate Demys and one Gentle- 
man Commoner, who being under the phantom author- 
ity of the nonagenarian President, lived in a license 
beyond even the normal license of his class. Frederick 
Bulley, afterwards President, did something for us as 
tutor at least in the way of most kindly interest and 
encouragement ; but we really depended for instruction 
upon private tutors; "coaches" they were called. 
I was coached at different times by Congreve,^ then 
Fellow of Wadham, and a strong Liberal and Evangel- 
ical of Arnold's school, afterwards a Comtist and head 
of one section of the Positivist Church in England; 
by the excellent Mountague Bernard,* afterwards 
Professor of Law, and, what was perhaps more impor- 

[' Frederick Bulley, President of Magdalen College from 1855 
till his death in 1885.] 

[2 Martin Joseph Routh, President of Magdalen from 1791 till 
his death in 1854. Born in 1755.] 

[' Richard Congreve, the Positivist ; founded the Positivist com- 
munity in London in 1855. 1818-1899.] 

I* Mountague Bernard, first PVofessor of International Law at 
Oxford, 1859-1874. Born 1820 ; died 1882.] 



52 REMINISCENCES 

tant, one of the founders of The Guardian; and by Lin- 
wood/ the author of an edition of ^Eschylus and the 
editor of the Musce Oxonienses. Linwood was a 
prodigy. He had written in an examination ninety- 
nine Greek iambic verses, which may be seen shghtly 
cut down in the Musce Oxonienses, and which might 
easily pass for an extract from a second-rate play of 
Euripides. But he never sustained his Undergraduate 
reputation. His ^Eschylus is jejune, and he somehow 
ended in ecHpse. 

I was fortunate in the members of our httle circle 
of Demys. With pensive interest I recall their names. 
One of them I saw afterwards a Roman Catholic priest. 
We lived a happy life in our junior Common Room, 
seeing perhaps rather too little of the University out- 
side, though my Eton connection gave me acquaint- 
ances. Our star was Conington,^ afterwards Professor 
of Latin, who had come up from Rugby a wonderful 
scholar with a miraculous memory and carried every- 
thing before him in examinations. His figure was 
rather grotesque, and there was about him a touch of 
the Dominie Sampson which tempted little practical 
jokes, though the story of his having been put under 
the pump is totally baseless and utterly unjust to his 

[1 William Linwood, public examiner at Oxford 1850-1851. His 
best-known works are "A Lexicon to^sehylus," 1843, and "Sopho- 
clis TragcediiE," 1846. Born 1817 ; died 1878.] 

p John"Conington, Professor of Latin from 1854 till his death in 
1869. Edited many of the classics ; published some verse transla- 
tions. Born in 1825.] 



OXFORD 53 

college mates, who were all of them as quiet and well 
bred as they could be. His learning perhaps was supe- 
rior to his taste ; but he was a great scholar, and would 
have beeil greater had not his life been cut short. 
He seemed to be the toughest of men, and little did I 
think that I should survive him. 
\ My kind father allowed me a horse, and pleasant 
rides I had over the higher country round the flat on 
which Oxford is built, by Bagley, Elsfield, Wood Eaton, 
Stow Wood, Beckley, and other points of beauty. The 
country was more open to the horseman then than it 
is now. Lord Abingdon ^ kindly lent me a key to his 
lovely Park at Wytham. Those rides were favourable 
to reflection as well as to health and enjoyment. The 
beauty of the College itself, with its Gothic Quadrangle, 
its lawns, and its deer-park, was a perpetual delight. 
It would be hard to say whether the Quadrangle looked 
its best under the summer sun or under the winter moon 
when the snow lay on its roofs. Once more I was happy 
in aesthetic influences as an element of education. 

About our President, Martin Routh, much has 
already been written. He died of an accidental mal- 
ady in his hundredth year. He had lived with Parr.^ 
As an Undergraduate he had seen Dr. Johnson. He 
had seen the elevation of the house of Temple to the 
peerage; and he saw its fall. Yet he had been so 

[* Montagu Bertie, the sixth Earl of Abingdon, High Steward of 
Oxford and Abingdon, Lord-Lieutenant and Gustos Rotulorum of 
Berks. 1808-1884.] 

P Samuel Parr, 1747-1825.] 



54 REMINISCENCES 

wrapped up in his study of the Fathers and such a 
recluse that he had little to say about the times through 
which he had lived ; outside of his books, county gene- 
alogies were his theme. He was never seen but in 
full canonicals of the fashion of the last century. 
Somebody bet that he would show Routh without his 
canonicals, and thought to win the bet by crying 'fire/ 
of which Routh was horribly afraid, at the dead of night 
under his window. Routh at once appeared, in a great 
fright, but in full canonicals. Such was the story. 
Routh prolonged his life by excessive care, living as 
it were under a glass case and never going abroad except 
in the finest summer weather. On a Sunday in summer 
at afternoon chapel there would sometimes be a move- 
ment among the visitors in the ante-chapel, which, 
with the reverential attitude of the porter and presently 
the shuffling of aged feet, announced the President's 
approach. Till near the end of his life Routh presided 
at the terminal examinations. Collections, as they were 
called, when he would put questions on the history of 
the Odyssey, and explain that in those days no inde-; 
cency was involved in the attendance of ladies on gen-| 
tlemen in the bath. His deafness, increased by his 
wig, combined with his old-fashioned respect for rank, 
once led to a funny incident. A Gentleman Commoner, 
son of a Baronet, having been beyond measure lawless, 
was being reprimanded by the tutors. The President, 
who had been looking the other way, hearing the loud 
sound of voices, turrsd round, saw a Baronet's son on 



OXFORD 55 

the opposite side of the table, and taking it for granted 
that the Tutors were paying him compliments, chimed 
in with, "I am very happy, Mr. Blank, to hear what 
the tutors say of you. Pray tell Sir Charles with my 
compliments that you are a credit to the College." 

The President held with his Presidency the country 
living of Theale ^ where he was said to preach erudite 
sermons to the rustics. '^I know, my friends, that you 
may object to me what St. Irenseus says." 

Routh's Patristic learning, which was then unique 
and had produced the Reliquice Sacrce, made him a 
grand card for the Tractarians when their movement 
began. Yet by those who knew him well it was thought 
doubtful whether he really cared much about the mat- 
ter. Curiosity, they said, rather than anything else, 
was the leading motive of his Patristic studies. 

Routh had become President before the idea of aca- 
demic duty had dawned. This perhaps is sufficient 
excuse for the state of sinecurism and torpor in which to 
the end of his days he allowed that magnificent College 
to remain. Roundell Palmer,^ afterwards Lord Sel- 
borne, then a Fellow of Magdalen, among others moved 
for reform. But the answer always was, ''Wait, sir, 
till I am gone." 

The Fellows of Magdalen were a curious assortment. 
Some were relics of the age depicted in the well-known 



[1 A parish about four miles from Reading.] 
[^ Roundell Palmer, first Earl of Selborne, Lord Chancellor in 
1872.1 



56 REMINISCENCES 

words of Gibbon, using the college as a tavern and a 
shooting-box. Two or three were ascetics of the new 
Tractarian school. Charles Reade/ the novelist, was 
a non-resident Fellow. He came into residence for 
one year for the sake of holding a College office to which 
a nomination was attached. His costume was a green 
frock-coat with brass buttons, and his behaviour was 
not less eccentric than his costume. We took him, 
in fact, to be almost crazy. Of the Tractarians the 
most notable were James Mozley ^ and William Palmer.^ 
Many years afterwards, when the Regius Professorship 
of Theology was vacant, I was asked by a friend who 
was a member of the Government whom they ought to 
appoint. My answer was that of preachers, commen- 
tators, and writers on ecclesiastical history there were 
plenty ; but that the only theologian in the proper sense 
of the term known to me was James Mozley. I have 
no reason to believe that my opinion had any influence 
in the appointment ; but if it had, supposing Theology 
not to be an extinct science, I was justified by the re- 
sult. Mozley was a Tractarian, but short of Rome. 

William Palmer, brother of Roundell Palmer, after- 
wards Lord Selborne, was a man of genius whose 
genius took a singular turn. I saw a good deal of him. 

[1 Charles Reade was elected Fellow of Magdalen in 1835. Born 
1814 ; died 1884.] 

[^ James Bowling Mozley, Regius Professor of Divinity in 1871 ; 
Bampton Lecturer ; Canon of Worcester. Born 1813 : died 1878.] 

[^ William Palmer ; Theologian and archaeologist ; brother of 
Roundell Palmer ; Fellow of Magdalen. 1811 to 1879.] 



OXFORD 57 

Don Quixote did not live in the age of chivalry more 
completely than did William Palmer in the age of me- 
dieval religion. As an inn was a castle to Don Quixote, 
to William Palmer the Colleges were monasteries, only 
with a rule unhappily relaxed, the Fellows were monks, 
the scouts or College servants were lay brethren. 
Protestantism he anathematized, earning thereby the 
name of ''Cursing Palmer." His leaning, however, 
was not to the Roman, but to the Greek Church, which 
attracted him by its superior rigidity. To bring the 
Anglican Church into communion with the Greek 
Church, or rather to get the communion in which he 
supposed they already were recognized, was the object 
of his life. For that purpose he went to Russia, and 
there opened before the heads of the Greek Church 
his budget of High Church doctrine, assuring them that 
such was the creed of the Church of England. But 
the Evangelical Chaplain of the Embassy at St. Peters- 
burg — I believe it was he — being called upon for his 
attestation, declared that the High Church doctrines 
were anathema. An untoward accident occurred. 
The wife * of Palmer's Russian host, travelling in Swit- 
zerland, was converted to Protestantism by an English 
clergyman of the Evangelical party. Her husband 
was horrified. Palmer had averred that the two 
Churches were in communion with each other. Yet 
here was an Anglican clergyman converting his wife as 
if she were a heretic or a heathen. Palmer at once 
[1 Princess Galitzin.] 



58 REMINISCENCES 

started in chase. He pursued the lady from place to 
place, entering his caveat when she presented herself 
to receive the Communion. From Bishop Spencer/ 
then ministering in Paris, he received some encourage- 
ment. Returning to England, he put to each of the 
Bishops the question whether their Church was in com- 
munion with the Greek Church, and got a series of 
evasive replies, the gist of which was that the Greek 
Church was a long way off. From Archbishop Howley ^ 
he got two letters, but no reply. Then he tried the 
Anglican Church in Scotland, and proposed to attend 
a Synod on the question as the deputy of Bishop 
Spencer. But the answer was that Bishops could not 
sit by deputy, and that Bishop Spencer was dead. 
Palmer then resolved to enter the Greek Church. But 
the Greek Church required him to be re-baptized, and 
re-baptism in his eyes was unlawful, baptism by heretics 
being valid. Not very logically he then turned to the 

[* George Trevor Spencer, Bishop of Madras ; graduated, Uni- 
versity College, Oxford, 1822 ; consecrated 1837 ; Chancellor of St. 
Paul's Cathedral 1860. Born in 1799, died in 1866. I learn from 
a private letter that he was Chaplain to the French Chapel in the 
Rue Marbceuf about the year 1840, just before he was made Bishop 
of Madras. And I find this verified in " Phases of My Life," by the 
Very Rev. Francis Pigou, D.D., Dean of Bristol, chapter ix, pages 
150 and 151 (London : Edward Arnold ; 1898), in which the Dean 
says : " . . . Bishop Spencer, formerly Bishop of Madras, . . . had 
had the offer of Marbceuf Chapel in Paris. . . . The church, if 
such it could be called, was situate at the bottom of the Avenue 
Marbceuf, a side street off the Champs Elysees, of which now 
scarcely any trace is left. It was originally founded by Mr. Lewis 
Way, in 1824."] 

[^ William Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1828 to 1848. 
Bom 1776.] 



OXFORD 59 

Church of Rome, which, however, he succeeded in 
entering without undergoing the conditional re-baptism 
commonly required of converts. Here his genius 
found its grave. Fantastic Egyptology, founded on 
the fancy that Satan had concocted the Egyptian 
religion in mockery of Christianity, occupied him till 

he died. 

If William Palmer was an ecclesiastical Don Quixote, 
he was also an ecclesiastical Ulysses. He had seen and 
studied every variety of religious belief and life. His 
conversation was most interesting; his language was 
racy in the highest degree. After his Russian adventure 
he wrote a book upon Church questions which you were 
allowed to purchase on declaring yourself a faithful 
layman, and which the virtuoso, if he ever meets with 
it on a bookstall, not having to make that declaration, 
will do well to acquire. ''Then certain of the baser 
sort made a conspiracy and cut off his head," this or 
something like this is the account of the rebellion against 

Charles I. 

It was to Roundell Palmer, then a non-resident Fel- 
low of Magdalen, afterwards Lord Selborne and Chan- 
cellor, who had kindly taken notice of a young student, 
that I owed my introduction to his brother. I owed 
to him much more, — the boon, for which I could never 
be sufficiently grateful, of his friendship in after-life. 
His history it is needless to repeat. He was a grand 
example of the union of high intellectual culture and 
literary tastes with the greatest professional energy 



60 REMINISCENCES 

and success. His power of work was wonderful. When 
he was Attorney-General, about the hardest place then 
in the world, I called one Wednesday afternoon at his 
Chambers. His clerk said at first that he would see 
me, then added, ''I think you had better not go in.'^ 
'' Why not? " ''Sir Roundell has not been in bed this 
week." Palmer told me afterwards that it was true; 
that he had been working hard to earn his Christmas 
holiday, and had not gone to bed till Wednesday night. 
The wit of the Magdalen Common Room was New- 
man ^ (not John Henry), a first-rate mimic. One day 
he amused himself by masquerading as a stranger 
visiting Oxford and hiring a guide to show him round, 
which the guide did with the usual illustrative com- 
ments. When at last they came to Magdalen, the guide 
pointed out the Fellows' Common Room. To his sur- 
prise and horror Newman bolted into it and was seen 
no more. 

\ Now was the crisis of the Tractarian movement, of 
which the Ritualist movement is the less earnest and 
masculine successor. The source of Tractarianism is 
plainly disclosed in the opening of the "Tracts." Lib- 
eralism was advancing, the support of the State was 
failing the Church, and threatened to be withdrawn 
from her altogether. She must therefore look for sup- 
port elsewhere, and she would find it in Apostolical 

[1 Perhaps Thomas Harding Newman, of Wadham College. 

Matriculated in 1829 ; a Demy of Magdalen from 1832 to 1847 ; 

Fellow, 1846 to 1873 ; Dean of Divinity 1849 ; died 1882. — But 
I am not sure. — Ed.] 



OXFORD 61 

Succession and the supernatural virtue of the Sacra- 
ments administered by priestly hands. Oxford, with 
her medieval Colleges and her clerical and celibate 
Fellows, was the natural centre of a movement which 
pointed' to a revival of the Middle Ages. The dining- 
hall of Magdalen, where the diners usually were so few, 
was full enough on the day of the ecclesiastical Ar- 
mageddon, when all the country parsons came up to 
vote on the condemnation of Ward.' I was unlucky 
in never hearing Newman ^ preach. He had just been 
forced by the heads of the University to retire from 
the pulpit of St. Mary's and had withdrawn with a 
select circle of disciples to his monastery at Little- 
more.' I heard him read the service, which he did in a 
mechanical monotone, that he might seem to be the 
mere mouthpiece of the Church. His face, I always 
thought, betokened refinement and acuteness much 
more than strength. He was always in quest, not of 
the truth, but of the best system, presenting a sharp 
contrast to his brother Francis,' whom also I knew 

[1 The Reverend WiUiam George Ward, nicknamed " Ideal Ward," 
one of the chief figures of the Tractarian movement. Wrote in 
defence of Newman's celebrated "Tract XC." The reference is to 
his removal from his Degree for heresy ; joined the Roman Catholic 
Communion and wrote in favour of Papal infaUibUity; pubhshed 
many controversial treatises. 1812-1882.] ,. , ,onm 

P John Henry, Cardinal Newman. Born 1801 ; died 1890.J 

[3 Two miles and a half from Oxford.]' 

[* Francis WiUiam Newman, FeUow of BaUiol ; afterwards Prin- 
cipal of University HaU, London ; author of a "History of Hebrew 
Monarchy," "The Soul," "Phases of Faith," etc. Born 1805; 
died 1897.] 



62 REMINISCENCES 

well, and who through all his changes of opinions 
sought the truth witlr singleness of heart. The "Gram- 
mar of Assent " ^ is an apparatus for making yourself 
believe or fancy that you believe things which are good 
for you but of which there is no proof. It may be 
doubted whether, when the hot fit of conversion was 
over, Newman was a hearty Roman Catholic, or believed, 
as he vowed he did, in St. Januarius and the House of 
Loretto. Manning ^ accused him of minimizing Ca- 
tholicism, and he never would make converts from the 
Anglican Church. 

Few of the students of those days, few at least of the 
intellectual and serious class, were proof against the 
witchery of Newman's style or failed to be fascinated 
by his romantic presentation of the medieval Church 
after the aridity of the ''high and dry " regime. 

Pusey ^ I used to see going about with sorrowful 
visage and downcast eyes and looking like the embodi- 
ment of his favourite doctrine, the irremissibility of 
post-baptismal sin. I heard him preach. He was 
undeniably learned, but by no means logical or clear. 
His catenas wanted a link. In his moral passages, 
however, he was highly impressive in his ascetic way. 

Manning I saw ascend the pulpit, a most imposing 

P "An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent," first published in 
1870. It has gone through several editions.] 

p Henry Edward Manning, Roman Catholic Archbishop of West- 
minster. Born 1808 ; died 1892.] 

[' Edward Bouverie Pusey, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Ox- 
ford ; one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement ; a notable figure 
amongst the ' Rituahsts ' of the time. Born in 1800 ; died in 1882.] 



OXFORD 63 

figure, looking like an apparition of the Middle Ages; 
but I thought him a tinkling cymbal, as in fact he turns 
out to have been. That he would never have seceded 
if they would have made him a Bishop was the opinion 
of his brother-in-law Samuel of Oxford.^ Of Ward I 
happened to see a good deal, when I was reading with 
a Fellow of Balliol in the vacation and dined in their 
Conomon Room. He was a first-rate dialectician, 
shrinking from no conclusion, and I fancy rather revel- 
ling in the uproar which he made. His joyous avowal 
that clergymen of the Church of England were embrac- 
ing the whole cycle of Roman Doctrine brought matters 
to a head and forced the hand of Newman, who had 
probably looked to remaining leader in the Church of 
England and ultimately negotiating reunion with 
Rome. Ward's figure was grotesque, almost Fal- 
staffian ; though very fat, he walked with a sort of skip, 
and wore low loose shoes which he had a trick of kicking 
off. He was a candidate for a Fellowship of All Souls' 
in the days when the qualifications for election there 
were social, and candidates were invited to dine with 
the Warden and Fellows that their social aptitudes 
might be seen. Ward, so the story ran, kicked his 
shoes off under the table; a rival candidate pushed 
them away from him, and when the party rose to pass 
from the Hall into the Common Room, Ward stood 



[' Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, and then of Winchester, 
His wife's sister, Caroline Sargent, married in 1833 Henry Edward, 
afterwards Cardinal, Manning.] 



64 REMINISCENCES 

up without his shoes. There was something laughable 
about all that he said or did. As a medievalist he advo- 
cated clerical celibacy; but, to use his own expression, 
he had not himself the gift of continence, and the ascet- 
ics of his party were taken aback by learning that 
between the acts of his condemnation for Romanism 
in the Theatre, he had read a letter from a lady to whom 
he was engaged. Even in his religious writing there 
was a f riskiness which seemed to show that he enjoyed 
the fun. 

Keble,^ who, with Newman and Pusey, made up the 
Tractarian Triumvirate, had left Oxford, married, and 
taken a country living. Some years afterwards I ac- 
companied his friend Judge Coleridge on a visit to his 
house. He was the embodiment of the sweet, gentle, 
somewhat mystical and not very masculine poetry of 
the ''Christian Year." Why he had not joined the 
secession was evident enough. Besides his wife, he 
had a conjugal attachment, like that of George Herbert, 
to his parish Church. I was told that he loved to per- 
form service in it, even with a nominal congregation. 
Nor was he likely to be drawn into anything from which 
his heart recoiled by the pressure of strict logic. If 
he was troubled by the lateness of the Tractarian 
discovery that the Prayer Book, not the Thirty-Nine 
Articles, was the real standard of the Church of Eng- 

[1 John Keble, the author of "The Christian Year"; Professor 
of Poetry at Oxford from 1831 to 1841 ; Vicar of Hursley, Hamp- 
shire, from 1836 tiU his death in 1866. Born 1792.] 



OXFORD 65 

land, he could satisfy himself by reference to the anal- 
ogy of the Christian Dispensation, which came late 
into the world. Butler's ''Analogy"^ was in those 
days the Oxford Koran, and in its line of argument 
was found a universal solvent of the theological diffi- 
culties. A very great book Butler's "Analogy" un- 
doubtedly is; but the assumption on which it is built, 
that we should expect in Revelation the same diffi- 
culties which we find in natural religion, is palpably 
unfounded. We should expect Revelation to be the 
corrective of the difficulties of natural religion, not their 
counterpart. Butler, however, was a profound thinker, 
and in spite of his ecclesiastical trammels nobly loyal 
to reason and truth. 

Curious forms did that resurrection of the ecclesias- 
tical past bring forth ; but none more curious than that 
of John Brande Morris,^ who in the Tower of Exeter 
College fondly watched for the return of the Dark Ages. 
He wrote a poem pronounced by some Tractarians 
equal to Milton's in excellence and superior in subject, 
in which he spoke of oxen as "trained to labour by 
meek celibacy." 

Let me by the way correct a common error which has 
crept into the work of my excellent friend President 



[' "The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the 
Constitution and Course of Natxu'e." By Joseph Butler, Bishop of 
Durham. First published in 1736.] 

[^ John Brande Morris, Fellow and Hebrew Lecturer, Exeter 
CoUege, Oxford, 1837; joined the Church of Rome 1846. 1812- 
1880.1 



66 REMINISCENCES 

White on the ''Warfare of Science and Religion." ^ It is 
a mistake to think that Everett, the American Ambas- 
sador, was hooted in the Theatre when he was presented 
for an honorary degree. The hooting was not at 
Everett,^ but at Jelf/ who had made himself very 
unpopular as Proctor. Several of the students were 
punished for it. I was in the Undergraduates' gallery, 
and saw and heard it all. Everett was not brought 
in till long after the hooting had begun. It unluckily 
happened that there was at the same time a Tractarian 
opposition among the Graduates to Everett's Honorary 
Degree on the ground that he was a Unitarian. But 
the opponents, though they showed their intolerance, 
did nothing rude. They sent a deputation to Everett 
to assure him that no personal offence was intended. 
In the Theatre they did no more than formally signify 
their dissent as a legal precaution. Throughout this 
period of controvei'sy, earnest and sometimes heated 
as discussion was, social tolerance remained generally 

[' "A History on the Warfare of Science with Theology in Chris- 
tendom." By Andrew Dickson White. 2 vols. New York : 
Appleton. 1896. — The reference is to Vol. II. pp. 335-336. The 
incident occurred on the 28th of June, 1843.] 

[2 Edward Everett, the celebrated American statesman, orator, 
and author; successively Professor of Greek at Harvard College, 
1819-1825 ; member of Congress ; Governor of Massachusetts ; 
Minister to England ; President of Harvard College ; Secretary of 
State ; United States Senator. It was when he was Minister to 
England (1841-1845) that he was given the Honorary Degree. 
Born in 1794 ; died in 1865.] 

p William Edward Jelf, Greek Reader 1879 ; Tutor 1836 to 
1849; Proctor 1843; Public Examiner 1841 to 1855; Bampton 
Lecturer 1857. Born 1811 ; died 1875.] 



OXFORD 67 

unimpaired, and conversation in the Common Room 
was free. A body of English gentlemen, however 
bigoted, could never have been brought to hoot a guest. 

Academical duty, however, was lost in the theologi- 
cal fray. The teaching staff to a great extent aban- 
doned its task to the private coaches. From sinking 
into mere clericism the University was saved only by 
the Class List. The University having been absorbed 
by the Colleges, and the Professor having been super- 
seded by the College tutor, the Professoriate had sunk 
into decrepitude. Few of the Professors except the 
Professor of Theology, lectured, and if they did the 
attendance was very small. Buckland ^ lectured on 
geology, of which he with Sedgwick ^ and Murchison 
was a pioneer. I attended his course, and could not 
help marking the shifts to which he was driven in his 
effort to reconcile geology with Genesis. The effort 
now is to reconcile Genesis with geology. 

Dr. Arnold ^ held the chair of Modern History, to 
which he had been appointed by a Whig Government. 
His coming to deliver his course was a grand event. 
His name was a horror and a terror to the dominant 
High Church party. Turnus was appearing once more 
in the camp of vEneas. His lectures, however, were 

[iWiUiam Buckland (1784-1856), Professor of Mineralogy; 
Reader in Geology ; Canon of Christ Church ; Dean of Westminster ; 
President of the Geological Society in 1824 and 1840.] 

[2 Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), Woodwardian Professor of Geol- 
ogy at Cambridge 1818; President of the Geological Society 1831.] 

[' Thomas Arnold, the Head Master of Rugby ; Regius Professor 
of Modern History at Oxford 1841.] 



68 REMINISCENCES 

crowded. The success, professional and personal, was 
complete. The description of the blockade of Genoa 
drew tears from the eyes of Heads of Houses. The 
audience felt that they were looking on a hero. And 
a true hero Thomas Arnold was. 

Our curriculum was classical, mathematics holding 
a very secondary place, though a double first, that is, a 
first-class both in classics and mathematics, was the 
summit of honour ; classical distinction was the general 
road to such prizes open to merit as there were. Our 
classical course, however, included Aristotle, Plato 
for those who chose, and Butler by way of supplement, 
together with logic and ancient history. Aristotle 
was studied in a scholastic way and without distinction 
between the genuine and spurious books of the Ethics. 
Still the study was intercourse with a great intelligence. 
It kindled an interest in the problems of humanity. 

I tried for honours, and won them. But I have often 
doubted whether they were a blessing to me. My rela- 
tives always upbraided me with want of ambition, and 
the charge was perfectly true. But my University 
honours thrust upon me at the outset a sort of distinc- 
tion, which, as I was unambitious, has been the source 
of more pain than pleasure. My great pleasures have 
always been domestic, and I should have been happier 
in a perfectly private and tranquil walk of life. 

Whether the system of competitive examinations is 
good is a moot question. Love of the study is of course 
far better as a motive. But love of study is not uni- 



OXFORD 69 

versal. Lord Althorp/ one of the best and most useful 
of English statesmen, owned that he would have re- 
mained a mere sportsman had he not been spurred to 
intellectual exertion by his mother's desire that he 
should succeed in a College competition. In this case, 
however, the studies were gymnastic. Bread-and- 
butter studies, now in the ascendant, ought to draw 
of themselves. 

The life of the ordinary Undergraduate has, I believe, 
become softer, more refined, and more luxurious than 
it was in my day. Wine parties, which were our social 
meetings, have, I am told, gone out of fashion. The 
sound of the piano is now common in College Quad- 
rangles ; it was hardly ever heard in my day. Rooms 
are said to be more elegantly and tastefully furnished. 
On the other hand, athletics have assumed monstrous 
proportions. Football in my time was never played 
by any adults but the roughs in the North, and when 
we played it at Eton only the ball was kicked, whereas 
everything now is kicked but the ball. Yet we are told 
that character is less masculine than it was. Nor is 
this a paradox. Athletic force is muscular, not moral. 

Among the incidents not to be forgotten of Oxford 
Undergraduate life were the Long Vacation reading 
parties. I have a pleasant recollection of the days 
spent with chosen companions at Filey, then a small 
village, with its spacious beach and the amphitheatre 

P John Charles Spencer, Viscount Althorp and third Earl Spen- 
cer. 1782-1845.1 



70 REMINISCENCES 

of rock into which the Northern Sea grandly rolls; 
amidst the beautiful scenery of Linton; or beside 
Grasmere lying in the quiet urn of its green hills. It 
was when we were in Devonshire that a trial took place 
closely resembling the Tichborne case. The title and 
estate of an infant Baronet were claimed by an impostor 
who pretended that he was the child of a secret mar- 
riage. The impostor, like the Tichborne claimant/ had 
got up his case with care ; and at the trial things were 
going well for him when word came to the counsel on 
the other side that a seal tendered by him as a proof of 
family identity had been manufactured for him a few 
weeks before in a London shop. The fact was sprung 
upon him; he collapsed under it, and in a few weeks 
was in Dartmoor gaol. The case created local excite- 
ment and no more. The Tichborne case set the 
whole country in a blaze, divided families, and it was 
thought would have divided the nation had a general 
election then taken place. So much more inflammable 
and excitable has the electric telegraph made the public 
mind. Such now, if a Tichborne case could divide 
the nation, is government by the people. 

Among my notable contemporaries, besides Coning- 
ton, were Matthew Arnold ^ and Freeman. Matthew 

[^ The celebrated Tichborne case lasted from May the 11th, 1871, 
to February the 28th, 1874. The claimant's name was Arthur 
Orton.] 

p Matthew Arnold, the poet and critic, was born in 1822 ; was a 
Master at Rugby; then Private Secretary to the Marquess of 
Lansdowne; then an Inspector of Schools. He died in 1888.] 



OXFORD 71 

Arnold was outwardly a singular contrast to his almost 
terribly earnest sire. Not that he was by any means 
without serious purpose, especially in his province of 
education. His outward levity was perhaps partly a 
mask, possibly in some measure a recoil from his father's 
sternness. As we were travelling together in a railway 
carriage, I observed a pile of books at his side. 
''These," said he, with a gay air, ''are Celtic books 
which they send me. Because I have written on Celtic 
Literature, they fancy I must know something of the 
language." His ideas had been formed by a few weeks 
at "a Welsh watering-place. He exerted, however, 
unquestionably an elevating and liberalizing influence 
on a large class of minds. He pierced the hide of Phi- 
listinism with the silvery shafts from his bow, though 
his idea of Philistinism may not always have been 
perfectly just. But in all fields, social or theological 
as well as literary, taste was supreme in his mind. If 
there is nothing disparaging in the phrase, I should say 
that he was the prince of connoisseurs. Freeman^ 
was a follower of Newman, and the leading spirit of the 
Oxford Architectural Society, which conducted the 
sesthetic part of the medieval revival. He and I be- 
came great friends in after years, when he was living 
as a Thane on his paternal Allod at Somerleaze, near 
Wells. He was very happy when he was made a Justice 

[1 Edward Augustus Freeman, the historian of the Norman 
Conquest, was born in 1823, and was Regius Professor of Modern 
History at Oxford from 1884 tiU his death in 1892.] 



72 REMINISCENCES 

of the Peace. There are different versions of the story 
of his having been toasted at an Architectural Society's 
dinner as one "singularly familiar with the manners 
of our rude ancestors." But it was mere brusqueness, 
not insolence. From insolence he was entirely free. 
In America he probably counted too much on the sim- 
plicity of Republican fashions, a mistake into which 
the English visitor is apt to fall. As a historian, 
though diffuse in style and somewhat pedantic, he will 
always be master of his period. He was profoundly 
learned, strictly accurate, and, though he had his predi- 
lections, thoroughly honest. He loved truth and hated 
falsehood, loved righteousness and hated iniquity. 
Hence he dealt rudely with the worshipper of Henry 
VIII, in spite of Froude's ^ literary charm. 

Temple ^ and Clough were rather my seniors. 
Temple, making his way upon the small income of a 
Tiverton Scholarship at Balliol, was respected as the 
model of a hard-working and self-denying student. 
He was presently to contribute to that manifesto of 
Rationalism, ''Essays and Reviews," ^ which set the 
orthodox world in a flame; though in his own essay 
there was nothing specially to alarm, and in fact I 
heard it delivered as a University Sermon without 

P James Anthony Froude's "History of England from the Fall 
of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada."] 

[2 Frederick Temple, was Head Master of Rugby from 1858 to 
1869; Bishop of Exeter, then of London, and then Archbishop of 
Canterbury.] 

[» These were pubUshed in 1860. They were condemned by Con- 
vocation in 1861 and 1864.] 



OXFORD 73 

disturbing the slumber of any of tlie Heads of Houses. 
He became Archbishop of Canterbury and supreme 
guardian of the orthodox faith. One cannot help 
wondering what was the mental process of transition. 
Transition to some extent from association with the 
authors of ' ' Essays and Reviews " there must have been. 

Clough/ Dr. Arnold's model pupil, seemed to me an 
instance of a moral overstraining which was a liability 
of Arnold's system. He came up to Oxford a phi- 
losopher. Ward, seeing the value of such a recruit to 
the Tractarian party, got hold of him, uprooted his 
existing beliefs, but failed to plant new beliefs in their 
room. Clough was altogether upset, and missed the 
first-class which he would otherwise have most easily 
won. He went through life with a vague and hopeless 
yearning for truth, which seemed to be depicted in his 
very face. Some short poems and a translation of 
Plutarch were the only products of a great intellectual 
power. 

In those days before University Reform the Fellow- 
ships of Magdalen were divided among certain counties, 
and there was no prospect of a vacancy in my county. 
I had to seek a fellowship elsewhere. It was with keen 
regret that I left Magdalen ; my heart has always turned 
to its beauty, and often the sound of its sweet bells has 
come to me across the ocean. Reformed it had, in 



[^ Arthur Hugh Clough, the poet, was the son of a Liverpool 
cotton merchant ; born 1819 ; Scholar of Balliol ; Fellow of Oriel, 
and Tutor; Principal of University Hall, London; died 1861.] 



74 REMINISCENCES 

justice to the University and the nation, to be ; and I 
had to bear a hand in the process ; but I was helping to 
destroy a httle Eden in a world where there are not 
many of them. An attempt was made by a reforming 
party at Queen's to open a Fellowship and Tutorship 
for me there ; it was defeated, as it was sure to be, by 
a combination of Anti-reformers and Ritualists. I 
found a more congenial home in University College. 




GoLDWiN Smith at about Forty Yeaus of Aue. 

Photograph by J. H. Guggenheim, Oxford. 



CHAPTER V 

OXFORD TUTORSHIP 

1851-1854 

Fellows — Arthur Penrhyn Stanley — Benjamin Jowett — Thorold 
Rogers — Mark Pattison — Sir Travers Twiss, 

My life during the years that followed was rather 
a medley. I was for a time Tutor at University Col- 
lege; was Assistant Secretary to the Royal Commis- 
sion of Inquiry into the University of Oxford; and 
Secretary to the Parliamentary Commission of Reform 
which followed it ; tried the study of law for a time in 
London, but found that the profession would be beyond 
my strength ; fell back on the University ; and became 
Regius Professor of Modern History ; during my tenure 
of which office I was a member of the National Educa- 
tion Commission. 

Fellows at Colleges were then all unmarried and lived 
in College ; such of them as were in Orders waiting for 
College livings. We dined together in Hall, and after 
dinner had our chat round the fire in Common Room. 
The Common Room at University was that in which 
Johnson had often been a guest. Over its mantelpiece 
stood the bust of Alfred, our legendary founder, by 

75 



76 REMINISCENCES 

Bacon/ a copy of which now stands in the Hall devoted 
to liberal studies at Cornell. Living amongst our 
pupils, we saw a good deal of them. The marriage of 
Fellows and their residence out of College must have 
greatly loosened the old ties. This is a pity. But 
the change was necessary to secure teachers perma- 
nently devoted to their calling, which the celibate 
Fellows and Tutors of former days could not be. 

There is, I believe, little difficulty in managing young 
English gentlemen, if they trust you and know that 
you respect their feelings. They will bear reproof 
when they are conscious that it is deserved, and submit 
to all that is really necessary to the enforcement of 
law. Sarcasm, which hurts their self-respect, mistrust 
of their word and honour, or espionage, they will not 
bear. Of course it is necessary to remember that boys 
are boys, and while you hold the reins firmly, not to 
be always pulling at the horse's mouth. Tricks were 
sometimes played on the Dons, the authors of which, 
if you were wise, you were not over-anxious to discover. 
From the hazing which is the strange opprobrium of 
American Colleges we were almost entirely free. Once 
an unpopular student of our College was hazed. The 
College officer who had to deal with the case said in 

[' The author probably refers to John Bacon, born 1740 ; died 
1799; but Chalmers (History of the Colleges, etc., i, 36 [1810]) and 
Ingram (Memorials of Oxford, University College, p. 15 [1834]) 
describe the bust as "carved by Wilton from a model by Rysbrach." 
It was presented to the College by Jacob Pleydell Bouverie, Vis- 
count Folkestone, afterwards second Earl of Radnor.] | 



OXFORD TUTORSHIP 77 

effect, "Boys will be boys, and if you play pranks on 
me or my colleagues you will be punished if we are so 
unlucky as to catch you; but we are not insulted. 
Your fellow-student, if you maltreat him, is insulted. 
We are the guardians of the honour and feelings of 
everybody under this roof, and we mean to fulfil our 
trust." One appeal to good feeling was enough. 

As Tutor of University I stepped into the place of 
Arthur Stanley,^ whose name, in those days great, and 
to High Churchmen terrible, is now almost forgotten, 
while the progress of the Higher Criticism has left 
the most daring of his heresies far behind. 

Stanley's influence as a theologian and a religious 
philosopher, never very great, apart from the charm 
of his personal character, has ceased. His best works 
are his "Life of Arnold," his historical lectures, and his 
"Sinai and Palestine." The work last mentioned 
called forth his utmost enthusiasm and gave the fullest 
scope for the display of his special gift, the historical 
picturesque. In the lectures on the Eastern Church 
he shows his ardent historical sympathies, his power 
of delineating historical character, his comprehensive- 
ness of view, and the picturesque vivacity of his style. 
His lectures on the Jewish Church lack a critical basis 
and strictness of critical treatment altogether. The 
lecturer too often escapes from a critical difficulty into 

P Best known perhaps as Dean of Westminster, a post he held 
from 1864 till his death in 1881. He was born in 1815; became 
Canon of Canterbury in 1851 ; and Professor of Ecclesiastical 
History at Oxford in 1856.] 



78 REMINISCENCES 

preaching. To account for the subsistence of the Israel- 
ites during forty yeare in the wilderness, with the min- 
imum of miracle, he labours to make out that the desert 
may once have been less barren ; a desperate hypothesis 
if carried to the necessary extent. The historian who 
tries to sit between the two stools, miracle and myth, 
comes to the ground. The case is even worse when the 
lecturer has to deal with the moral difficulties, such as 
the massacre of the Canaanites, the slaying of Sisera, 
and David's death-bed legacy of vengeance. 

Stanley was wanting in the power of strict and 
patient investigation, in the critical faculty, in force to 
grasp, almost in desire of grasping, positive and definite 
truth. He could scarcely even understand the need of 
positive and definite truth felt by ordinary natures, 
which had no golden cloud of historical sympathy and 
religious eclecticism wherein to float. Hence he over- 
rated the efficacy of the oil which, in a truly Evangelical 
spirit, he poured upon the troubled waters. He says 
that the writer of Genesis did not mean to teach us 
geology, but only the relation of man to his Creator. 
The writer of Genesis, however, did teach us geology, 
at least cosmogony, and his apologists are driven to 
saying in effect that the Creator, in dictating an account 
of his own work, though not scientifically right, was 
very nearly right, and almost anticipated the nebular 
hypothesis. It might be asked, too, whether the crea- 
tion of Adam and Eve does not concern the relation of 
man to the Creator. 



OXFORD TUTORSHIP 79 

' Stanley's theory of Church and State was derived 
not so much from Hooker/ to whom his biographer 
ascribes it, as from Arnold, who again seems to have 
derived it from the Greek commonwealths, the study 
of which was his delight. Arnold failed to observe 
that though the Athenian Commonwealth had a State 
religion to which Socrates sacrificed, the religion of 
Socrates was outside that of the State, and brought him 
to a martyr's doom. Stanley, like Arnold, desired that 
Church and State should be one. In strange practical 
contrast to his general liberalism, Stanley was an 
almost fanatical upholder of Church Establishments. 
He went the length of feeling a qualified sympathy 
even with 'Bluidy Mackenzie.' He had persuaded him- 
self that, under the free system, there would be more of 
sectarian bitterness and mutual persecution. But he 
had only to look across the Atlantic to see that there 
would be nothing of the kind, and that you might have 
a Christian nation without a State Church. Strange 
to say, when he visited America he seemed to miss the 
significance of what he saw, and to identify himself 
with the Episcopal Church alone. As a Liberal, 
Stanley belonged himself to one of the Church parties, 
and could not help at last being drawn from his chosen 
position of mediator and peacemaker into the party 
fray. When he was in it, he fought like a gamecock, 
and developed unexpected powers as an oratorical 

[1 Richard Hooker, the author of "The Laws of Ecclesiasticall 
Politie."] 



80 REMINISCENCES 

gladiator in the debates of Convocation, though he 
always bore himself as became a single-hearted cham- 
pion of truth and justice, never descending to virulence 
or faction. He now threw back his mantle of half 
orthodoxy, and stood revealed to High Churchmen and 
Evangelicals as the horrid thing he was. Their dread 
of him was ludicrous. Of course flowers were scattered 
on him by orthodoxy. He was told that his conduct 
''was scarcely reconcilable with the most fundamental 
principles of morality "; that ''if he had behaved with 
like profligacy in the service of an earthly sovereign he 
would have been tried by court-martial and shot " ; and 
that he had committed ' ' a graver offence than the tutor 
who corrupts his pupil's mind or the trustee who robs the 
widow and orphan of their property." This, though his 
enemies did not know that he had administered the 
Sacrament to such an arch-heretic as Mrs. Annie Besant ^ 
and witnessed a Spanish bull-fight on a Sunday ! 

The dust of these furious controversies has now been 
gathered into a narrow urn. Stanley describes the 
rumour of Newman's secession to Rome as producing 
an effect like that of the crack of doom. It seemed, 
he said, that the sun was about to hide its rays and that 
darkness was falling on the scene. To us the confluence 
of Newmanism with Romanism seems as natural as 
the confluence of two drops of water on a window-pane, 
and perhaps fraught with consequences little more 

[' President of the Theosophical Society. Author of numerous 
works. Born in 1847.1 



OXFORD TUTORSHIP 81 

momentous to humanity. We have far other questions 
now before us. 

What Stanley did practically towards liberalizing 
theology was done, not so much by his theological 
arguments, as indirectly by his treatment of Bible 
history. As his biographer says, he brought semi- 
mjrthical personages and events down to a human level. 
He carried on, and pretty well completed, the work 
begun by Milman, who, daring in his day, first designated 
the Father of the Faithful as a Sheikh. 

I must not forget Stanley's high claims as a bio- 
grapher, in which character he first won distinction, 
and is to many, perhaps, still best known. His ''Life 
of Arnold " is a noble, and no doubt in the main a true, 
picture of a genuine hero. Though panegyrical, as a 
Life written by a friend and disciple must be, it is not 
slavish, any more than was Stanley's devotion to Arnold 
himself. The Life is no doubt true, I say, in the main. 
There was something in Arnold's character, as there is 
something in his face, which a pupil who lay in his 
master's bosom could hardly see. Stanley was never 
a schoolboy; at Rugby, though neither unsocial nor 
unpopular, he lived apart. He tells us that the school- 
world of ''Tom Brown " was an absolute revelation to 
him, opening up a world of which, though so near him, 
he was utterly ignorant. Nor could he well be sensible 
of any tendency in Arnold's monitorial system to make 
boys prematurely sage. 

Stanley's Oxford prize poem, "The Gypsies," rises 



82 REMINISCENCES 

far above the prize poem level, and promises a real, if 
not a great, poet. This promise he never fulfilled. It 
is strange that he should have entirely lost, if ever he 
had it, a sense of music, art, and scenery; that he 
should have seen nothing in the glorious Alps but 
''unformed and unmeaning lumps," and found, maugre 
Ruskin, no beauty or attempt at beauty in the interior 
of St. Mark's. He had no ear for music, yet between 
him and its Queen, Jenny Lind, there was an almost 
passionate friendship. 

"A quaint pathetic helplessness in practical matters 
that proved at once attractive and endearing" was 
characteristic of Stanley, and is ascribed by the bio- 
grapher to the petting care with which he was always 
treated by his domestic circle. But surely it must have 
been natural and not unconnected with his want of 
accuracy in investigation. He never could do a rule- 
of-three sum, and when he voted for Mill, who held that 
the power of doing a rule-of-three sum ought to be a 
qualification for the suffrage, he said that he had been 
voting for his own disfranchisement. His handwriting 
was the despair of postmen and printers. A letter 
addressed by him to Dublin found its way to Bath. 
His "here we caught our first view of Jerusalem " was 
printed ''here we caught our first view of Jones." A 
highly confidential letter intended for the Liberal 
Bishop Thirlwall ^ he misdirected to the High Church 

[1 Bishop of St. David's. 1797-1875. — But Stanley exculpates 
himself. See Prothero and Bradley's "Life," I, 442.] 



OXFORD TUTORSHIP 83 

Bishop Wilberforce, with ludicrous results. As Dean 
of Westminster, while he was a most admirable custos 
of the Abbey, he seems to have been a poor custos of 
its estate. But his want of aptitude for business, and 
his natural distaste for it, enhance the merit of his 
readiness to undertake such a post as that of secretary 
of the Oxford Commission, and lay aside his congenial 
work for it when what he deemed his duty called. 
He lived, if ever a man did, not for himself, but to do 
good. Sint anvnae nostrae cum illo. 

I was also intimate with Stanley's illustrious yoke- 
fellow Jowett,^ about whom, since his death, much 
has been written. He was a far deeper and more ac- 
curate scholar than Stanley, as a comparison of his 
"Romans" with Stanley's "Corinthians" will show. 
His essays in the same work evince great spiritual 
insight and sympathy as well as literary grace. But 
there was no clinch in his mind. He would have 
doubted and kept other people doubting forever. 
Whatever was advanced, his first impulse was always 
to deny. Doubt is better than credulity only so long 
as you are pushing on to truth. Nor can I understand 
how a man could have found it possible to speak or 
even to think with perfect freedom in such a position 
as that of the clerical Head of a College, performing 
religious services and preaching in the College Chapel, 



[1 Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol College, Oxford, and trans- 
lator of Plato. Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford. Bom 1817 ; 
died 1893.1 



84 REMINISCENCES 

when he had ceased to believe, not only in revealed 
religion and miracle, but apparently in the existence 
of any trustworthy evidence of the personality and 
teaching of Christ. I cannot help thinking that Jowett 
sought in translation a mental refuge. The result, no 
doubt, was happy for those who can read the Classics 
only in an English dress; though it is difficult to pre- 
serve in a translation the aroma of Plato or the fresh- 
ness of new-born philosophy struggling to express itself 
which engages us in Thucydides. Jowett did great 
things for Balliol and the University. Men afterwards 
eminent owed to him the awakening and direction of 
their intellectual life. 

/ Another Liberal notability, though in a very different 
line and style, was Thorold Rogers,^ Professor of Politi- 
cal Economy, with his burly frame, his voice of thunder, 
his headlong Radicalism, and his rollicking good hu- 
mour. He was a satirist as well as an economist. 
Stubbs ^ and Freeman were mutual admirers. 

The most remarkable figure in our circle was perhaps 
that of Mark Pattison.^ He had once been an ardent 
follower of Newman. It was said that he had escaped 
secession only by missing a train. He had, however, 

[' James Edwin Thorold Rogers, first Tooke Professor of Statistics 
and Economic Science at King's College, London ; then Drummond 
Professor of Political Economy, Oxford ; M.P. for Southwark, and 
afterwards for Bermondsey ; published many works. 1823-1890.] 

[2 William Stubbs, Mr. Gold win Smith's successor in the Chair 
of Modern History at Oxford. He was nominated Bishop of Ox- 
ford in 1888.] 

[3 Rector of Lincoln CoUege, Oxford. Born 1813 ; died 1884.] 



OXFORD TUTORSHIP 85 

missed that train with a vengeance, and had become 
a notable specimen of the recoil ; though once when he 
preached before the University there seemed to me to 
be something like a regurgitation of the asceticism of 
his Newmanite days. In his case, as in that of Jowett, 
one could not help wondering how an Agnostic could 
hold the office and perform the religious functions of a 
clerical Head of a College. Pattison was profoundly 
learned, rigorously accurate, and a Draconian critic. 
His talk, when he was in the right vein, was highly 
instructive and amusing, with touches of rather grim 
humour. He was the chief of a party called '^Re- 
searchers," who held that the proper function of a 
University was not teaching, but research, for which 
holders of University emoluments ought to be left 
perfectly free from fixed duties. He was himself not a 
happy example of his system, since as a tolerably active 
College Tutor he had produced his excellent Life of 
Casaubon, while as the holder of a College Headship 
which was almost a sinecure and was by him made 
entirely one, he produced nothing of more consequence 
than newspaper reviews, a short biography of Milton, 
and a school edition of Pope's ''Essay on Man." That 
there was an unpleasant element in his character, 
passages in his Memoirs ^ show. If there are such things 
in the manuscript which he has deposited with the 
Curators of the Bodleian for future publication, the 

[^ " Memoirs." By Mark Pattison. Late Rector of Lincoln 
College, Oxford. London : Macmillan'and Co. 1885.] 



86 REMINISCENCES 

Curators ought to use the knife, not allow themselves 
to be made the agents of posthumous libel. How 
Conington can have moved Pattison's spleen, it is hard 
to tell/ He was amiable, inoffensive, and if he had 
changed his mind about religious questions, Pattison 
had done the same. Still more discreditable is the 
allusion to the misfortunes of Dr. Travers Twiss,^ 
against whom Pattison cherished a grudge for having 
many years before, as the legal adviser of University 
College, decided against him a question of eligibility 
to a Fellowship. The case of Travers Twiss was one 
which might have moved even a disappointed candi- 
date's heart to pity. From the summit of prosperity 
and reputation he was suddenly cast down by the dis- 
covery of a flaw in the pre-nuptial character of his 
wife. A scoundrel, who, I heard with pleasure, had 
ended his days in a Work-House, being acquainted with 
Lady Twiss's history, blackmailed her and her husband 
till they could bear it no more. A prudent friend 
offered to take the wicked blackmailer out of the 
way by finding him constant employment abroad. 
But they determined to go into Court. Lady Twiss 

[1 See the " Memoirs," pp. 245 et seq.] 

P Sir Travers Twiss ; bursar, tutor, examiner, barrister ; Professor 
of Political Economy, of International Law ; Regius Professor of 
Civil Law at Oxford, 1855-1870 ; Chancellor of the Diocese of Lon- 
don ; etc. He married in 1862 Marie Pharialde Rosalind Van 
Lynseele. Those who desire to know the details of the "flaw" 
spoken of in the text, may consult the Law Reports of the London 
Times of the second week of March, 1872. Born in 1809; died in 
1897. The reference to Sir Travers Twiss in Pattison's " Me- 
moirs " is on pages 176-7.] 



OXFORD TUTORSHIP 87 

broke down. Twiss had to resign his Chancellorship 
of the Diocese of London, and was a ruined man. One 
day before his marriage I had dined with him in his 
elegant little house in Park Lane, and quaffed Cabinet 
Johannisberger, the gift of Metternich,^ for service done 
to Austria by Twiss's pen. The next time I saw him 
was in the Strand, some years after his fall. I crossed 
over to grasp his hand, but he dived into the crowd. 

[1 The Austrian statesman and diplomatist, Prince Clemens 
Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternieh-Winneburg. 1773- 
1859.1 



CHAPTER VI 

TRAVELS 

1847- 

The Tyrol — Dresden — Prague — Normandy — Guizot — Italy 
— Italian Exiles — Ijouis Blanc. 

Of course I travelled. Very limited the range of 
travel was compared with what it is at the present day. 
On the other hand, when I and my companions rambled 
over Switzerland, Tyrol, and the Southern slopes of the 
Alps, a faint hue of romance still lingered on the knap- 
sack. We climbed the Rigi on our own feet. At 
Zermatt, where now are great hotels, the good Madam 
Lauber, in her little wooden hostelry, feasted us with 
goat's flesh, and when I was out late at night sent her 
ostler with a lantern to look for me on the Alps. Now 
there are great hotels, and there is to be a railway up 
the Matterhorn. In Tyrol you lived for about two 
shillings a day in clean quarters with coarse but not 
unwholesome fare, and coffee, probably home-grown. 
In Tyrol, however, for want of trained guides we were 
once near getting into a scrape. We were to cross from 
the head of the valley of the Inn into the vale of Meran. 
Our guide did not know the pass, and on the recommen- 
dation of the priest, at whose house, for lack of an inn, 

88 



TRAVELS 89 

we put up, we took a peasant from the village. Late 
in the afternoon we reached a plateau of snow through 
which we could just wade and on the other side of which 
was the only descent to the vale of Me ran. Just then 
came on a blinding snowstorm, a thing bewildering and 
almost appalling in the Alps. The peasant lost heart; 
refused to go on ; when persuaded to go on, took to 
his flask for courage, and when, fortunately, we had just 
got clear of the plateau, tumbled over a little precipice 
and lay like one dead in the snow beneath. He was 
got down the mountain to a spot where help could 
reach him from a village. Of my knapsack memories 
the Lago d' Orta ^ with the mountain path from Orta 
to Varallo is the sweetest. From the Dent de Jaman 
I saw a magnificent thunder-storm between the Alps 
and the Jura. The reverberation of the thunder 
between the ranges hardly ceased for hours. The first 
sight of the distant Alps seems to give one a new sense. 
Cobden, whom Tories called "sl bagman," said to me 
when I was going to America, "There are two sublimities 
in nature, the sublimity of rest and the sublimity of 
motion. The sunset Alps are the sublimity of rest, 
the sublimity of motion is Niagara." He would now 
find Niagara turned into a power and railroads running 
up the sunset Alps. No wonder Switzerland does not 
produce human poets in face of such transcendent poe- 
try of nature. A spiritual philosophy is more likely 
to be born in sight of the Alps than a school of poetry. 
[1 (?) Laguna d' Orta.] 



90 REMINISCENCES 

'■^A pleasant summer I spent in 1847 with an Oxford 
party at Dresden, where we were then about the only 
English. We studied German in the morning; dined 
at the Briihlsche Terrasse at noon ; at six went to the 
theatre, which was excellent. We saw the '^ Merchant 
of Venice " acted there for the first time. The rapture 
of the audience and its enthusiastic acclaim of Shake- 
speare's name were delightful. Often, of course, I 
stood before the Sistine Madonna. That, it seems to 
me, is the only infant Jesus with a supernatural look, 
and it seemed to me that the effect might have been 
produced by putting the eyes of a man into a child's 
face. As to the pictures of the Virgin and Child in 
general, I must confess that if there is one thing of 
which I am more weary than I am of them it is a picture 
of the Holy Family. Art toils in vain to depict Deity 
as a child in a mother's arms. 

We went up the Elbe to Prague, the city of quaint 
magnificence and teeming memories ; the most roman- 
tic being those of Wallenstein. In Prague John Huss 
reigns no more. He was supplanted by the Jesuits 
with their St. John Nepomuk,^ Queen's confessor, and 
martyr, as the Jesuits say, to the secrecy of the Confes- 
sional, while the jealous King gave another account of 
the martyrdom. My companion nearly won the crown 
of martyrdom for himself and me by striking the statue 
of St. John Nepomuk with his umbrella as we crossed 
the bridge over the Moldau. 

[1 Usually, I think, caUed St. John of Nepomuk.] 



TRAVELS 91 

Travelling is much altered since those days. Going 
from Ham to Hanover we had to get into the interior 
of a crowded Eilwagen at noon in burning weather and 
to crawl amidst clouds of dust through the whole of 
that day, the following night, and great part of the next 
day. I preserve to this hour a grateful recollection of 
the bottle of Assmannshauser with which I refreshed my- 
self at Hanover. The paragon of quick travelling was 
the Mallepost from Geneva to Paris, which took two pas- 
sengers in a coupe. At the Geneva Poste with the first 
stroke of the clock at 4 p.m. the wheel turned. We 
trotted up the Jura, had ten minutes for refreshment 
at the top of it, then galloped with successive relays 
of neighing and kicking stallions to Paris, having only 
one halt of a quarter of an hour for refreshment. We 
were turned out at the Paris Poste at one o'clock in 
the morning of the second day to find our lodgings as 
we could. My fellow-traveller fortunately had a car- 
riage to meet him, in which he kindly took me to Meu- 
rice's; otherwise I might have spent the rest of the 
night in the yard. However, if travelling was less 
easy, people were not so restless. A man who had a 
holiday reposed. The present age is so restless that it 
can find repose only in action. If a man has a holi- 
day, he sets out to travel as far as he can by rail, 
encountering almost as many cares in catching trains, 
looking after baggage, and getting rooms at hotels, as 
there are in the business for relief from which he flies. 

It was later on that, feeling in need of refreshment. 



92 REMINISCENCES 

I took a quiet carriage drive through Normandy, 
stopping at each place till I had exhausted its antiqui- 
ties and beauties, living at the tables d'hote of the little 
hotels, and seeing something of the people. I picked 
up some history by the way. Wide is the gulf between 
the France of the days before the Revolution and the 
France of to-day. I came upon a ruined chateau. 
The peasants could tell me nothing about it; did 
not know who had been its lords; but said it had 
belonged to a Baron who shod his horses with silver. 
Perhaps the grandfathers of some of these men had 
stood bareheaded at the gate to see the Lord go forth. 
In the wall of the aubei^ge was a medallion portrait, 
probably taken from the chateau. The landlady 
could not tell me whose it was, but I thought I recog- 
nized the features of Marie-Antoinette. 

On the trip I fell in with a young French official who 
was going his rounds. We travelled some way together, 
and a very pleasant companion he was. I was struck 
with his attitude towards the Church. He seemed 
to have got beyond any antipathy to it, and to regard 
it with perfect indifference, as a thing with which he 
had no concern. I was at the Church of Mont St. 
Michel when a party of peasants entered. The women 
all went up to the altar and knelt to it; the men all 
stood aloof. On the other hand I had an introduction 
to a wealthy gentleman at Caudebec who was working 
zealously for the Church. The connection is every- 
where close between religious and political reaction. 



TRAVELS 93 

Zola's picture of the peasantry in "La Terre " did 
not seem to me to be applicable to the Norman peas- 
ants. Taking shelter from the rain in a Norman 
cottage, I found what seemed to me, for peasants, opu- 
lence and civilization. But from what my friend Lady 
Verney,^ a very careful observer, said, Zola's description 
is true of the peasantry in the South. A sorry result 
of a century of revolution ! 

In the magnificent churches of Caen you feel the 
majesty of the Conqueror. At Falaise the castle still 
looks down upon the tanneries, as in the days when 
Robert the Devil wooed the tanner's daughter. There 
lie buried Walter ^ and Biota,^ reputed victims of the 
Conqueror's ruthless ambition. I thought of the con- 
cluding words of one of Halford Vaughan's * lectures 
on the Norman Conquest. ''John, who murdered his 
nephew, was weak, and he is infamous ; but if Walter 

[1 Probably Frances Parthenope, eldest daughter of William 
Edward Nightingale, and second wife of Sir Harry Verney, the 
second Baronet. She wrote "Real Stories from Many Lands," 
1878; "Peasant Properties, and other Selected Essays," 2 vols., 
1885 ;" Cottier Owners, Little Takes and Peasant Properties. A 
Reprint of 'Jottings in France, Germany, and Switzerland,'" 
1885 ; and many other books.] 

P Walter, Count of Mantes (and chosen Count of Maine), son 
of Godgifu, the daughter of King Ethelred.] 

P Biota, his wife, daughter of Herbert Wake-Dog. — They were 
said to have been poisoned by William the Conqueror, while they 
were his guests. — See Freeman's "The Norman Conquest," iii, 
139; iv, 391. — For the tale in brief, the general reader may be 
referred to Freeman's " Wilham the Conqueror," chap. iv. London : 
Macmillan. 1888. ("Twelve EngHsh Statesmen" Series.)] 

[* Henry Halford Vaughan, Regius Professor of Modern History 
at Oxford from 1848 to 1858.] 



94 REMINISCENCES 

and Biota sleep in the vaults of Falaise, the horse of 
William's equestrian statue prances proudly over their 
forgotten graves." 

I had made the acquaintance of Guizot ^ when he was 
an exile in London. A note recalling our acquaintance 
brought a kind invitation to Val-Richer. I found a 
charming family group assembled there. The fallen 
Minister was evidently happy in the circle of home 
affections; and I set down his happiness as a proof 
of his having used power on the whole for good. So 
I believe he had; though his enemies might call him 
an austere intriguer, and though a stain was left on 
his career by the Spanish Marriage plot; which, how- 
ever, was not his work, but that of his crafty master. 
His talk, as we paced the garden after breakfast, was 
mainly about the religious state of Europe. He 
seemed to look with complacency on the Papacy as a 
conservative power. There had been a division in the 
French Protestant Church, in which he was on the con- 
servative side, while his son-in-law was on the latitudi- 
narian. Coming to the subject of Ireland, he stopped 
in his walk, and with an emphatic wave of his hand 
said, ''The conduct of England to Ireland for the last 
thirty years has been admirable." I replied that in 
intention it had ; but that we had still to do away with 
the Irish Church Establishment. To this he assented, 
and then repeated what he said before. 

[1 Frangois Pierre Guillaume Guizot, the celebrated French 
statesman and historian. 1787-1874.] 



TRAVELS 95 

Italy I saw for the first time with the raptures of a 
student of history, ancient and modern. I was im- 
pressed, of course, by the luminous grandeur of St. 
Peter's, but the impression was not religious; it was 
merely aesthetic, and the style, in strong contrast with 
that of the Gothic Cathedrals of Christendom, seemed 
to mark the distinction between the Papal autocracy 
and the religion of Anselm and Thomas a Kempis. A 
later tour took in Ravenna, on which I looked as the 
asylum of one of the greatest of poets, but one who at 
the same time had polluted imagination with the hateful 
Purgatory and Hell, depicting God as an almighty 
fiend torturing through all eternity for their frailty 
beings whom he had himself created frail. Profoundly 
interesting is Syracuse, specially to all who read in the 
original the narrative by Thucydides of the retreat of 
the Athenians, which has been called the finest of all 
narratives and is certainly among the very finest. 

No place took my fancy more than Perugia, enthroned 
upon its hill with its glorious view over those valleys, 
and with the shrine of St. Francis near. The city 
having become cramped and rather noisome, a new 
quarter had been thrown out with a new hotel. In the 
hotel-book was entered Ruskin's name, with an 
anathema against the new quarter as a profanation 
of history and art. The censor, however, had put up 
at the new hotel. 

To talk about Venice would be a platitude. About 
St. Mark's, beautiful and interesting as it is, Ruskin's 



96 REMINISCENCES 

raptures seem to me to be overdone. What impressed 
me intensely and indelibly was the whole scene. I 
saw that scene just in time, before the Campanile had 
fallen and steam busses had been put on the Grand 
Canal. 

In England in that revolutionary era I saw a good 
deal of the Italian exiles, Mazzini, Saffi, and Arrivabene.^ 
Mazzini impressed me as really noble. His mark was 
humanity, of which he wished his Italy to be a free and 
worthy organ. He assured me that he had never been 
concerned in any assassination plot. Between Gari- 
baldi and me letters passed, and when he visited Eng- 
land he was going to visit Oxford and put up at my 
house, but a jealous fairy whisked him away. 

A far more questionable servant of humanity was 
Louis Blanc,^ with whom I sat on Richmond Hill 
through a long summer afternoon, talking of his doings 
and those of his party in France. In exile he was mod- 
erate, as well as very lively and attractive. But it 
seemed to me that he had no definite policy, though he 
had strong feelings, and if the guillotine had been put 
into his hands, I am afraid he would have used it. Here, 

P Giuseppe Mazzini, the celebrated Italian patriot and revolu- 
tionary, was born in 1808, and died in 1872. — Count Aurelio Saffi 
was (with Mazzini and Armellini) elected one of the Triumvirate 
of Rome in 1849. — Count Carlo Arrivabene was the author of 
"An Epoch of my Life " ; "The Urgency of the Venetian Question " ; 
"Italy under Victor Emmanuel," etc.] 

p Jean Joseph Charles Louis Blanc, the French politician, his- 
torian, political writer, and socialist; the advocate of "National" 
or "Social," "Workshops.'! Born 1811; died 1882.] 



TRAVELS 97 

however, was the latest outcome of three-quarters of 
a century of European revolution, of which the enor- 
mous carnage and incalculable destruction were by no 
means the most costly part. The most costly part 
was the effect on character, political and social. Let 
us never glorify revolution. 

\ Of Louis Blanc when he was an exile in England I 
saw a good deal. He was then all gentleness and phi- 
lanthropy; but had he been in power, I am afraid the 
demagogic despot, perhaps even the Terrorist, would 
have appeared. As we lay together on the grass at 
Richmond I might have been taken, as a British Lib- 
eral, to symbolize progress, while, after fierce con- 
vulsions, a Reign of Terror, hideous massacres, whole- 
sale banishments, dominations of scoundrels, military 
despotism with enormous sacrifice of life in the des- 
pot's wars, and a long train of commotions, usurpa- 
tions, and massacre following, with more civil war 
and overthrow of free institutions, were represented 
in Louis Blanc. 

[' A later addition.] 



CHAPTER VII 

UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS 

1854-1858 

The Unreformed University — The Commissioners — Dr. Jeime 
— Liddell—Tait — Johnson— The Report— The BiU — The 
Executive Commission — The Executive Commissioners — 
Richard Bethell, Lord Westbury — The Commissioners' Report. 

" That which man changes not for the better, time, 
the great innovator, changes for the worse." Never 
was the truth of Bacon's maxim more forcibly illus- 
trated than in the history of the University of Oxford. 
The Colleges had absorbed the University, which had 
originally been free. The Statutes of the College had 
remained unchanged from the time of their medieval 
founders. The Fellowships, which were originally 
provisions for poor students, but had by the change of 
circumstances become the endowments of the teaching 
staff, were saddled with all the preferences for birth- 
place, place of education, kinship, or poverty, in which 
the partiality of a founder, in an age little regardful 
of differences of intellect, had thought it harmless to 
indulge. Oaths were taken to observe codes of medie- 
val discipline which neither were nor could be observed. 
All the evils of which Adam Smith and Turgot have 
spoken as attaching to endowments displayed them- 



UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS 99 

selves in full force. The Professoriate was almost 
dead, few of the Professors lecturing, still fewer having 
4 respectable audience. Worst of all, perhaps, the 
Heads or Fellows having been required to take Orders 
in the days when every scholar was a Clerk, the Univer- 
sity and its Colleges had since the Reformation become 
strictly clerical, and the University, instead of being 
as it had once been, a place of general learning, science, 
and education, had become the citadel of ecclesiasticism 
and the arena of ecclesiastical dispute. Science was 
exiled. The ancient languages and literature alone were 
studied. Even mathematics had but a slight footing 
at Oxford, though Newton had made them fashionable 
at Cambridge. The University was cut off from the 
majority of the people of the United Kingdom by 
Anglican tests, and the Nonconformists were despised 
for their lack of culture, while they were excluded from 
its national seats. A reform had commenced at Oriel 
and Balliol, where conscientious Heads had opened the 
Fellowships to merit. Little Dr. Jenkyns,^ Master of 
Balliol, was a comic figure and the subject of innumer- 
able jokes. But with all his grotesqueness and pom- 
posity he was, as Carlyle says of a reforming statesman, 
a good antiseptic element in his day. So was Eve- 
leigh ^ the Provost of Oriel. Oriel and Balliol, how- 
ever, were small Colleges, and with them improvement 

[1 Richard Jenkyns. He was also Vice-Chancellor ; also Dean of 
WeUs. 1782-1854.] 

P John Eveleigh was Provost from 1781 till his death in 1814. 
He was born in 1748.] 



100 REMINISCENCES 

seemed to halt. It even showed a tendency to recede 
when Tractarianism, having become dominant, betrayed 
its hostility to intellect and its determination to keep 
the endowments, consequently the tutorial staff, as 
close as possible to those whom it called pauperes 
Christi; in fact, to youths of inferior intellect and sub- 
missive character, such as ecclesiastical leadership 
requires; while the tide of ecclesiastical agitation 
threatened to drown whatever was left of academical 
interest and duty. 

Social advantages undoubtedly there were, but in 
the way of intellectual gain all that an Oxford student 
got for three years of his life at a round sum of money 
was a smattering, soon forgotten, of Greek and Latin. 

Mr. James Heywood, a Nonconformist Member of 
Parliament, was bringing forward an annual motion 
for inquiry into the Universities mainly with a view 
to the abolition of religious tests. His motion was 
regularly negatived, being unsupported by the Liberal 
leaders, who saw no party capital in University reform, 
while they were afraid of stirring a formidable wasps' 
nest. A few of us, Mark Pattison and Jowett among 
the number, met in the rooms of Arthur Stanley at 
University College and addressed to Lord John Russell, 
the head of the Liberal Government, a request that 
he would not allow the occasion of Heywood's motion 
again to pass without holding out hope of assistance to 
University reform. In compliance with this request 
Lord John Russell announced a Commission of Inquiry 



UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS 101 

into the Universities and their Colleges. The wasps 
at once swarmed out upon him; Gladstone denounced 
interference with private foundations; the Minister 
seemed to waver. A series of letters written to The 
Times and signed '^Oxoniensis," taking Bacon's maxim 
for their test, were credited with having helped to con- 
firm him in his resolution. At all events he persevered, 
and Royal Commissions of Inquiry, one for Oxford and 
one for Cambridge, were appointed. 

The Oxford Commissioners were Hinds,^ Bishop of 
Norwich, a Whig prelate, put in the chair to propitiate 
Churchmen; Tait,^ then Dean of Carlisle, afterwards 
Archbishop of Canterbury; Dr. Jeune,^ Master of Pem- 
broke College; Liddell,* then Head Master of West- 
minster, afterwards Dean of Christ Church ; Dampier,^ 
a lawyer, to keep the Commission right in its law; 
Baden Powell,^ Professor of Geometry, to represent 
science; and George Henry Sacheverell Johnson,^ a 

P Samuel Hinds. 1793-1872.] 

P Archibald CampbeU Tait. 1811-1882.] 

[^ Francis Jeune ; afterwards President of the Probate and 
Divorce Court ; created Baron HeUer in 1905 ; died in that year.] 

[* Henry George LiddeU, joint author, with Robert Scott, of the 
Greek Lexicon. 1811-1898.] 

[^ John Lucius Dampier, son of Sir Henry Dampier, the judge, at 
this time Vice- Warden of the Stannaries of Cornwall ; at one time 
Recorder of Portsmouth. 1792-1853.] 

P Baden Powell, Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford. 
1796-1860.] 

[' George Henry Sacheverell Johnson, Dean of Wells ; Fellow, 
Tutor, and Dean of Queen's College, Oxford ; Savilian Professor 
of Astronomy, 1839-1842 ; Whyte Professor of Moral Philosophy, 
1842-1845 ; F.R.S., etc. 1808-1881.] 



102 REMINISCENCES 

paragon of the Oxford Class list, of Queen's College. 
Stanley was Secretary, and opened characteristically 
by misdirecting the letters to the Chancellor and the 
Vice-Chancellor of the University; the Chancellor 
being Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, whom 
Tory adoration had comically thrust into that place, 
as he seemed to proclaim at his inauguration by making 
false quantities in reading his Latin speech and wearing 
his Academical cap wrong side before. I was Assistant 
Secretary-Treasurer, my services being in request 
because I had studied for a literary purpose the docu- 
mentary history of the Colleges, to which, the muni- 
ment rooms of the Colleges hostile to the Commission 
being closed, there was no longer access. The Com- 
mission, being Royal, not Parliamentary, had no 
compulsory powers. 

The most active spirit of the Commission was Dr. 
Jeune, the Master of Pembroke. The Head of a House, 
to sit on a Commission of Inquiry to which Oxford 
generally and his own Order in particular were bitterly 
opposed, required courage. Jeune had it. He was a 
man of superabundant energy, remarkable acuteness, 
and lively wit. He had raised Pembroke from the 
lowest place among the Colleges to a respectable posi- 
tion. He was a strict political economist, and used 
to say that at the Day of Judgment he would be able 
to plead that he had never given a penny to a beggar. 
He was, however, really a very kind-hearted man, and 
would probably have given the beggar twopence. He 



UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS 103 

was excellent company and said good things. A lady 
at his table asked him the delicate question on what 
principle they chose the Heads of Colleges. ''They 
always take the handsomest man among the Fellows," 
was his reply. ''I should not have thought," said the 
lady, "that the Provost of Worcester had been chosen 
on that principle." ''Ah! but you have not seen the 
Fellows of Worcester." 

^ Another important member of the Commission was 
Liddell, joint author with Scott of our Greek Lexicon. 
He was a man of stately figure, character, and mind; 
an artist, drawing beautifully, as well as a great clas- 
sical scholar and a first-class in Mathematics. He 
sometimes made me think of the union of art and science 
in Leonardo da Vinci. It appears that he had a greater 
share in the lexicon than his partner. But at one 
time we expected of him something more than a Lexi- 
con. At the height of the Tractarian movement he 
preached one or two liberal and philosophical sermons 
which seemed to open a door and to promise us a leader. 
But he did no more in that line. Probably his intellect, 
like that of Bishop Thirlwall and other great Liberals 
in Orders, felt the pressure of the white tie. 

With Tait I then formed a friendship which happily 
for me proved lasting. During one of our visits to 
England in after years, my wife and I were the Arch- 
bishop's guests at Addington, and when we took leave 
of our host he was lying on a bed of sickness from which 
he hardly rose again. If ever I knew a good man, he 



104 REMINISCENCES 

was one. His belief in his liberal evangelicism was 
thoroughly sincere, and his sincerity, combined with a 
toleration as large as the law of his Church would permit, 
and with unfailing courtesy and kindness, carried him 
safely through all the difficulties of his position in very 
perilous times. Nothing could be simpler than his 
personal habits and demeanour. He had thoroughly 
endeared himself to the great mass of the laity, who 
looked upon him as a wise and good guide. He began 
his career as a Tutor at Balliol College, and was one of 
the four College Tutors who sounded a warning note 
against Romanizing tendencies. Then he became Head 
Master at Rugby, a place which did not suit him so 
well; afterwards Dean of Carlisle. The loss of four 
of his children all at once by an epidemic was said to 
have moved the Queen's maternal pity and led to his 
promotion to the Bishopric of London, from which 
he went to Canterbury. If this was so. Her Majesty 
had far better reason for her action than she knew. 

Johnson, of Queen's, was a man of the finest intellect 
and the broadest culture. As an undergraduate he 
had been the first of his day both in classics and mathe- 
matics. Great things were expected of him. But he 
had spent his strength in University competitions, and 
was a warning to ambitious students of that danger. 
As a Fellow of a wealthy College, condenaned by medie- 
val statutes, or at least by a custom supposed to be 
founded on them, to miserable Trulliberism and use- 
lessness, he had been personally impressed with the 



UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS 105 

need of reform. He was presently made Dean of 
Wells, and I spent many happy days with him and his 
lovely wife under the roof of the old Deanery in that 
city of ecclesiastical beauty, history, and repose. Has 
the tide of change and unrest yet disturbed the peace- 
fulness of Wells ? 

The Commission of Inquiry, in spite of all obstruc- 
tion on the part of the close Colleges' resistance, pro- 
duced an unanswerable Report ; and to carry its recom- 
mendations into effect Parliament passed an Act ap- 
pointing an executive Commission, to which there were 
two Secretaries, Wayte,^ afterwards President of Trin- 
ity College, who represented High Church conservatism, 
and myself. Gladstone, by this time, after hovering 
between Conservatism and Liberalism, had alighted on 
the Liberal side. As second in command to Lord Rus- 
sell in the Commons he not only approved but framed 
the Bill, and with all his power of exposition and com- 
bative energy pushed it through the House. One 
morning I went to him at ten o'clock to help in settling 
the details of the Bill, He said that he had been at 
work on it till a very late hour on the previous night. 
We worked at it all day, Gladstone only leaving me for 
about an hour and a half to attend a Privy Council. 
At six I was very glad to get away to my Club. Glad- 
stone went down to the House, where he made a speech 



[^ Samuel William Wayte ; scholar, fellow, rhetoric lecturer, 
tutor, dean, bursar, and then President of Trinity College, Oxford. 
1820-1878.1 



106 REMINISCENCES 

at one o'clock in the morning. The Bill was a good 
deal cut up by adveree amendments in the House 
of Commons, Disraeli doing his woi-st, and some Radi- 
cals ignorantly playing into his hands. When the Bill 
got to the Lords, Lord Derby/ who was Chancellor of 
Oxford, made a pretty stiff speech against it. But 
when he sat down, the Duke of Newcastle ^ came over 
to me and said that he thought that there would be no 
real opposition, as there had apparently been no Whip 
on the side of the Conservatives and the}^ were in a 
minority. Lord Derby, as a man of sense, was probably 
content with a decent show of resistance, being con- 
scious of the weakness of his case, and having early in 
life committed himself against the religious or rather 
chapel-going part of the Oxford system. I ventured 
to suggest that, ha\^ng a majority present, the Govern- 
ment might grasp the opportunity of reversing the 
Commons' amendments and restoring the integrity of 
the Bill. I said that when the Bill went down again 
to the Commons the Radicals might be better advised 
than they were before, and that, as the end of the 
Session drew near. Opposition members were likely 
as usual to be out of Town. Lord John Russell ^ on 
being consulted, condemned my proposal as rash and 
fraught with risk to the Bill. Gladstone was laid up 
with chicken-pox; but on an appeal being made to 

[' Edward George Geoffrey Smith Stanley, fourteenth Earl of 
Derby. 1799-1869.] 

[' The fifth Duke. 1811-1864.] 
[3 First Earl Russell.] 



UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS 107 

him gave, as might have been expected, the order for 
battle. I had the pleasure of witnessing a succession 
of divisions by which the whole set of hostile amend- 
ments was reversed. When the Bill went down again 
to the Commons, the result was what I had hoped it 
would be, and the integrity of the Bill was restored. 

■The work of the Executive Commission ^ was heavy 
and delicate ; negotiations having to be carried on with 
all the Colleges, some of which were still in a by no 
means friendly frame of mind. The chairman was 
Lord Ellesmere,^ a literary grandee ; the other members 
were Lord Harrowby ; ^ Longley," Bishop of Ripon and 
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury; Sir George 
Cornewall Lewis ; ^ Sir John Coleridge,® the Judge, of 
whom more hereafter; Sir John Awdry,' and Mr. 
Edward Twisleton.^ Lord Harrowby was a very 

[1 This Executive Commission must, of course, be carefuUy dis- 
tinguished from the Commission "appointed to inquire into the 
state, discipline, studies, and revenues of the University and Col- 
leges of Oxford," which has formed the subject of the previous part 
of this chapter. — Ed.] 

[2 George Granville Francis Egerton, second Earl of Ellesmere. 
1823-1862.] 

[' Dudley Ryder, second Earl of Harrowby, M. A., D.C.L., Oxen. ; 
M.P. for Tiverton; Lord Privy Seal; etc. Born 1798; died 
1882.] 

[* Charles Thomas Longley ; 1794-1868.] 

[' Sir George Cornewall Lewis, second Baronet, the statesman and 
author ; a Liberal M.P., held various high political posts ; editor 
of the Edinburgh Revieio. 1806-1863.] 

[" First Baron Coleridge, 1820-1894.] 

[' Probably Sir John Wither Awdry, at one time Chief Justice 
of the Supreme Court of Bombay. 1795-1878.] 

P The Honourable Edward Tiu-ner Boyd Twisleton ; politician ; 
Fellow of BaUiol ; barrister. 1809-1874.] 



108 REMINISCENCES 

worthy man and a statesman, the model of a Liberal 
Conservative, who by his inconveniently open mind 
had given much trouble to Whips. Sir George Corne- 
wall Lewis was that scholar and statesman whom 
Palmerston would have preferred to Gladstone as his 
political heir. He was a profound scholar. The list 
of his works fills more than two columns and a half of 
the "Dictionary of National Biography," but most 
of them died with him ; for their heaviness was not less 
remarkable than their accurate erudition. He was 
personally popular and took great care to keep in touch 
with the House. Yet it was difficult to believe that he 
could be a successful leader, especially when he would 
have had Gladstone on his flank. He could say a 
good thing. It was he who said after a crush party, 
''Life would be pleasant enough if it were not for its 
pleasures." Destructive criticism was his forte. In 
two ponderous volumes he destroyed the fabulous his- 
tory of longevity, and he did expose the Countess of 
Desmond,^ Old Parr,^ and other pretended centena- 
rians. But he was too critical in contending that no- 
body had ever been proved to have lived to a hundred. 
Among other instances, an herbalist at Oxford had cer- 
tainly lived to one hundred and four. It was said that 
when Lewis was canvassing for Parliament, if an elector 
refused his vote, he would say, ''If you can't give me 

P Katherine Fitzgerald, Countess of Desmond, second wife of 
Thomas, the twelfth Earl ; said to have lived to 140. Died in 1604.] 

[2 Thomas Parr, a native of Alberbury, near Shrewsbury. Said 
to have been born in 1483 ; died in 1635.] 



UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS 109 

your vote, perhaps you can direct me to some case of 
longevity in this neighbourhood." No man was more 
respected or beloved by those who knew him well. 

Edward Twisleton was a man of leisure, very learned, 
among other things a Hebrew scholar, an unusual 
accomplishment for a layman. He was expected 
to turn out some great work. In the end he turned 
out nothing but a dissertation on the ecclesiastical mir- 
acle of the ''African Confessors,"^ who talked when 
their tongues had been cut out, and a preface to an 
inquiry by an expert in handwriting into the author- 
ship of Junius,^ which concluded, like all the other 
evidence, in favour of Francis. 

The Oxford Bill brought me into contact incidentally 
with a very notable character, Bethell,^ then Attorney- 
General, afterwards Lord Westbury and Chancellor, 
about whom many stories have been told. Meeting 
him one morning in consultation about the Bill, seeing 
him very lively, and knowing how great his burden of 
work was, I could not help complimenting him on the 
ease with which he bore it. "Yes," he replied, in his 

[1 " The Tongue not Essential to Speech ; with illustrations of 
the Power of Speech in the African Confessors." By the Hon. 
Edward Twisleton. London : John Murray. 1873.] 

P "The Handwriting of Junius Professionally Investigated by 
Mr, Charles Chabot, Expert." With Preface and Collateral Evi- 
dence by the Hon. Edward Twisleton. London : John Murray, 
Albemarle Street. 1871. Quarto. Pp. Ixxviii, 300; and 267 
plates.] 

[* Richard Bethell, first Baron Westbury ; Liberal M.P. ; Solici- 
tor-General ; Attorney-General ; Lord Chancellor. Born 1800 ; 
died 1873.] 



110 REMINISCENCES 

invariably pious strain and with his usual mincing 
accent, ''I thank God it is so, and I owe it under Prov- 
idence to my habit of always working early in the morn- 
ing, not late at night. I set out in life," he added in a 
pensive tone, "with many dear friends who worked late 
at night. I have buried them all." He delighted the 
world, while he made himself plenty of enemies, by 
sharp satiric sayings, his genius for which, as well as his 
manner of uttering them, was incomparable. Coleridge, 
then Leader of the Bar, afterwards Chief Justice, 
was an object of his antipathy. After Coleridge's 
cross-examination of the Tichborne claimant, somebody 
was praising him before Bethell. ''Yes," said Bethell, 
''he has thoroughly exposed the greatest impostor of 
our age." "You mean the Claimant?" "No." In 
a debate in the House of Lords "Lord Westbury," it 
was said, "poured on the heads of his opponents a 
stream of pellucid vitriol . ' ' Crystalline lucidity was the 
special characteristic of his intellect. But his intellect 
was also one of first-rate power. If he had not thrown 
himself away, he might have given England a code. 
I had occasion to write to liim for his opinion as to the 
study of Roman Law in the Law School which we were 
organizing at Oxford. He replied at once in a long 
letter showing his mastery both of the subject and of 
his pen. Even to hear him argue in Chancery was a 
treat. 

Bethell's fall was due to the luckless ambition, which 
towards the close of his career seized upon him, of play- 



UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS 111 

ing the man of pleasure when he was not a man of the 
world. The abuse of a piece of his patronage by his 
scampish son, to which nobody could imagine that he 
had been privy, would not have been fatal to him. 
What was fatal was the social offence he had given by 
introducing a certain Countess to high ladies. I was 
sitting under the gallery of the House of Conmions 
when the vote of censure passed. Mr. Bouverie^ who, 
though a Liberal, was the bitterest of the accusers, 
having evidently prepared his speech, was in the full 
tide of eloquent invective and was coming out with 
a fine quotation from Milton about Satan, when his 
memory failed him. He paused, could not recollect 
the passage, fumbled in his pocket for the slip on which 
it was written, drew it out at last, read the passage, 
and wrecked his peroration; whereat I chuckled, my 
heart being on the Satanic side. Bethell's sporting 
aspirations could not fail to give birth to jokes. 
"That's the shortest Chancery suit ever I saw," said 
a sailor, as Bethell in nautical costume went up the side 
of a yacht. He rented Hackwood, the seat of Lord 
Bolton near Basingstoke in our neighbourhood, where 
he practised his markmanship, too late acquired, on 
rabbits. One day, so ran the story, a lawyer came 
down from London to confer with him about a case 
in which they were counsel on opposite sides and which 
was to be settled out of Court. When they had done 
their business, Bethell invited the lawyer to go out 
[1 Edward Pleydell-Bouverie, M.P. for Kilmarnock. 1844-1874.] 



112 REMINISCENCES 

rabbit-shooting with him. A rabbit crossing the drive, 
Bethell fired, and the keeper received some of the shot. 
At a conference afterwards held in London to draw 
up the agreement the other lawyer was surprised to 
find that Bethell's recollection of the terms differed 
widely from his own. ''But, Sir Richard, I assure 
you your memory fails you." ''Impossible," said Sir 
Richard, ''the facts are fixed in my memory by a par- 
ticular circumstance. You will remember that was the 
day on which you shot my keeper." The story, which 
went the round at the time, if it had a basis of truth, no 
doubt gained considerably by circulation; but a great 
intelligence had given birth to such stories and made 
itself a butt by yielding to vanity and attempting, at 
an advanced age, to play the part of fast and sporting 
youth. 

In connection with the Oxford Commission I had 
reason to feel grateful for the invention of the electric 
telegraph. The Act gave the Colleges a year for the 
revision of their own Statutes under the Seal of the 
Commission. On the last day of the year. Colleges 
being behindhand with their engrossing, a meeting of 
the Commission was held at Oxford to allow them the 
last moment. Three Commissioners were a quorum. 
One place was vacant. Lord EUesmere was sick. The 
Bishop of Ripon had gone to Southampton to meet his 
son, who was returning from the Crimea. But four 
Commissioners, Lord Harrowby, Sir John Coleridge, 
the Dean of Wells, and Sir John Awdry, had promised 



UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS, 113 

to attend. At two o'clock, the hour of the meeting, 
I was there with the documents and the seal. The 
Dean and Sir John Awdry arrived. We sat waiting for 
Sir John Harrowby and Sir John Coleridge. Enter a 
messenger from Lord Harrowby to say that he was 
called away to the bedside of his brother who was 
dangerously ill in Yorkshire. Still, with Sir John 
Coleridge, we had a quorum. But scarcely had Lord 
Harrowby's messenger departed when there came one 
from Sir John Coleridge to say that Sir John could not 
leave the bedside of his son, the future Chief Justice, 
who lay dangerously ill at Ottery, twelve miles from 
Exeter. Here was a dilemma. A lapse would have 
entailed a fresh Act of Parliament, to the disgust of the 
Government and to my disgrace. I rushed to the tele- 
graph office, which had not been long opened, and 
searched through the wire for the Bishop of Ripon at 
Southampton, but in vain. Then I said to the Dean of 
Wells and Sir John Awdry, ''There is still one train 
which reaches Exeter just before twelve. You must 
let me put you in it. I will wire the station-master 
at Exeter to direct a hotel to send a post-chaise and 
four to Ottery for Sir John Coleridge. We may hold a 
meeting at Exeter just in time to seal the Statutes." 
I did not know Exeter; but from a person at Oxford 
who did I learned the name of the hotel which Sir John 
Coleridge was most likely to use. Our train was on 
time at Exeter. I sprang out and ran to the station- 
master. He had received my message and had sent my 



114 REMINISCENCES 

order to the hotel ; but that hotel was closed ! Another 
hotel, however, had taken the order and sent the post- 
chaise. Just before twelve, Sir John Coleridge rolled 
into the inn yard ; the meeting was formed ; and before 
the clock struck the statutes had been sealed. An 
American Secretary would have put back the clock, 
but I had not then been in the United States. 

At the close of the Oxford University Cormnission 
the Commissioners were so kind as to offer to recom- 
mend me for a permanent place in the public service. 
I declined the offer, that not being my line. In re- 
ference to some false reports, let me say, that I never 
sought or desired anything of the kind. When I got 
the Professorship of History at Oxford, which came 
to me unasked, I had all that I desired in life. 

The work of reform has been since carried further 
by a second Commission. The first Commission did, 
I believe, as much as was practicable at the time, the 
state of opinion and the opposing forces being what 
they were. It swept away the medieval statutes, 
opened the Fellowships and Scholarships to merit, and 
practically transferred the University from clerical 
to academic hands. The tests were partly abrogated 
by the same Bill, and entire abrogation was sure to 
follow. A liberal constitution was given to the Univer- 
sity, and an existence independent of the Colleges was 
restored to it; though a federation of Colleges in the 
main it must continue to be, and College life must always 
be the life at Oxford. The result, amplified as it has 



UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONS 115 

since been, proved the soundness of the maxim that the 
half loaf is better than no bread. 

With reform from without went reform from within, 
carried forward by the same hands. The range of 
studies was enlarged, science was recalled from exile, 
and, with law and modern history, introduced into the 
course. The proper function of the University, how- 
ever, at Oxford and elsewhere, still remains unsettled. 
The old idea was that the University in its educational 
capacity was to be a mental training-place and a seat 
for studies unremunerative in themselves ; as Freeman 
said in his bluff way, it was to be devoted to the teach- 
ing of things which were of no use. The new idea, which ^ 
is gaining ground and in America has almost displaced 
the old idea, is that the University is to be a mart of all 
kinds of scientific or superior knowledge, out of which 
each student is to choose the article most useful for his 
destined career. The gymnastic and the bread-and- 
butter system, in short, are still confronting each other, 
while there is generally a rather awkward and uneasy 
attempt to combine the two. There is no essential 
antagonism between studies; a study may be useful 
and gymnastic at the same time. But this does not 
extend to trades, and into American and Canadian 
Universities trades are finding, if they have not already 
found, their way. 



CHAPTER VIII 

EDUCATION COMMISSION 

1858-1861 

The Commissioners — William Charles Lake — Nassau Senior — 
James Fraser — Popular Education. 

A FEW years after the University Commission, I 
was a member of the Commission appointed to report 
to ParHament on the subject of national education and 
to frame a plan. The other Commissioners were the 
Duke of Newcastle/ chairman; Sir John Coleridge,' 
Lake,^ afterwards Dean of Durham; Senior,* the lead- 
ing economist ; Edward Miall ; ^ and William Rogers." 
Coleridge, Lake, and perhaps in some degree the chair- 
man, though he was very liberal, represented the inter- 
ests of the Church; Edward Miall those of the Non- 
conformists; Senior those of social reform on secular 

[1 The fifth Duke.] 

[2 Sir John Taylor Coleridge, a nephew of Samuel Taylor Cole- 
ridge, Justice of the King's Bench from 1835 to 1858, Born 1791 ; 
died 1876.] 

p William Charles Lake, Dean of Durham from 1869 till 1894.] 

[* Nassau WiUiam Senior, the economist and author ; Professor 
of PoUtical Economy at Oxford 1825-1830 and 1847-1852.] 

[^ Edward Miall, an Independent Minister of Leicester ; estab- 
lished T/ie A^oncon/ormis^- M.P. for Bradford. 1809-1881.] 

p William Rogers was a great educational reformer ; curate of 
St. Thomas's, Charterhouse, London; Prebendary of St. Paul's; 
Rector of St. Botolph's ; etc. 1819-1896.] 

116 



EDUCATION COMMISSION 117 

principles; William Rogers, though he was a clergy- 
man, those of popular education pure and simple. I 
was appointed perhaps specially to deal with the subject 
of the existing Charities, educational and of other 
kinds, which it was proposed to include in the inquiry. 
I wrote the section of the Report on those subjects, 
which afterwards had the honour of furnishing the 
raw materials for a famous speech of Gladstone. As 
junior member, our eminent secretary Fitzjames Ste- 
phen ^ not giving the work much of his time, I had to 
give it a good deal of mine, and for two years was much 
at the office, not a little to the prejudice of my literary 
pursuits. 

Lake was a considerable man in his day; now, I 
suppose, like many considerable men, forgotten. He 
was one of Newman's circle, perhaps of the outer circle, 
who had not joined the secession ; a friend and ardent 
supporter of Gladstone, a stately and imposing sort of 
man. William Rogers,^ ''fat Rogers" as we used to 
call him at Eton, was Minister of a parish in the East 
of London and a noble specimen of that section of his 
order which, when reform knocked at the door of the 
slumbering Church, took, not to theological reaction 
or agitation, but to philanthropic effort. He did a great 
work among the neglected masses of the city poor, 

Nassau Senior was very eminent as a political econo- 

[^ Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, the judge, afterwards created a 
Baronet. 1829-1894.] 

P Frederick Rogers in the original MS.] 



118 REMINISCENCES 

mist, and was in the front of all inquiries and move- 
ments of that kind. He was also a great political quid- 
nunc, as is shown by his Diary of interviews ^ with some 
of the leading statesmen of Europe, who, however, it 
may be suspected, were too shrewd to unbosom them- 
selves without reserve. He had a grudge against the 
Poor Law Board, and when he insisted upon drafting a 
report upon their schools, we knew what he would do, 
and were prepared to deal with his draft accordingly. 
The draft, being loosely tied up, slipped out of the 
envelope in the post, and was misdelivered to the Poor 
Law Board, which refused to part with it on my appli- 
cation, and drew up a very full-bodied reply. Senior 
was not orthodox, and he fluttered the High Church 
members of the Commission by saying, when there was 
a question about reading the Bible in schools, that '*he 
did not want the children to be taught the very barbar- 
ous history of a very barbarous people." He was a 
thorough-going economist and anti-imperialist. That 
the Empire of India was essential to the greatness of 
England he held to be a great mistake ; he wished we 
were well rid of it, if we only knew how. 

Not the least valuable part of our Report was that 
furnished by Assistant Commissioners whom we sent 
out to inquire into the existing state of things in Eng- 

[^ "Journals, Conversations and Essays" ; "Correspondence and 
Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with N. W. Senior " ; "Con- 
versations with M. Thiers, Guizot . . ."; "Conversations with 
distinguished Persons . . ."; "Conversations and Journals in 
Egypt and Malta " ; etc.] 



EDUCATION COMMISSION 119 

land and into the operation of foreign systems. One 
of the Assistant Commissioners was my friend and 
neighbour in the country already mentioned, James 
Fraser, who, like Rogers, was a fine specimen of the 
unsacerdbtal and undogmatic revival among the clergy 
of the Church of England. His theological opinions he 
would perhaps neither have found it very easy, nor have 
much cared, to define. When he became Bishop of 
Manchester, he was in his right place ; and he no doubt 
did, and by his influence led the chiefs of industry and 
commerce to do, much social good. Our last meeting 
was in his house at Manchester, which I am sure he did 
not call The Palace. He had just been fiercely de- 
nounced by Mrs. Besant for saying that the loss of 
religious belief was followed by a falling off in morality. 
What he said nevertheless was true as a matter of fact, 
though the remedy needed was not the revival of dead 
beliefs, but the establishment of fresh and living princi- 
ples in their place. 

Of the Duke, our Chairman, I shall have to speak 
presently. He performed his office as a Moderator well. 
The Commission opened with debate on the general 
question, different phases of opinion on which we had 
been appointed to represent. A debate among able 
men, as my colleagues were, round a table without 
reporters, is instructive. The discussion left me inclined 
on the whole to the voluntary and parental system, 
when it is practicable, as opposed to any state machine ; 
and what I have seen in the United States and Canada 



120 REMINISCENCES 

has confirmed me in that opinion, though the State 
system has become so firmly estabUshed that I have 
hardly ever thought it worth while to raise the question, 
and have never refused to act under the established sys- 
tem. Democracy needs security for the voter's educa- 
tion ; but this might be afforded by an educational test. 
Edward Miall, who was with me on this question, and I, 
put our convictions and the reasons for them on record ; 
then, finding ourselves outvoted by five to two, we 
waived our dissent and proceeded with our colleagues 
to conduct inquiry and in common frame the report. 

In deciding this very vital question much may depend 
on circumstances social and domestic. Certainly re- 
ligious and probably family influence was strong in the 
old local schools of Scotland and New England. The 
public school cannot do much to mould character or 
manner; the influence of the teacher as a rule seems 
not to be great. It is apt to have against it the fond 
parent, who, the teacher not having been chosen by him, 
is apt to side with the refractory child. The private 
school seems to be generally preferred to the public 
school by those who can afford it, though they have as 
tax-payers to pay for both. Of union of classes, 
therefore, if this is an object, there cannot be very 
much. 



CHAPTER IX 

LAW 

Lincoln's Inn — On Circuit — English and American Courts of 
Justice — Criminal Law — Judges — The Bar — Sir Gardner 
Engleheart — Briton Riviere 

Chiefly to please my friends, who thought that a 
youth who had taken a First Class at Oxford was sure 
to become a Judge, I read Law, taking up my abode in 
London for the purpose. Law as a study suited me well 
enough. I even rather liked Fearne on ''Contingent 
Remainders " ^ for the perfection of the deductive 
reasoning from a perfectly arbitrary premise. Nor 
did I fail to appreciate the ingenuity of the old pleading 
system, quaint and grotesque as its formularies were. 
But for Law as a profession I soon saw that I should 
not have either strength or the other requisite quali- 
ties; for I have no gift of speech. My little knowledge 
of Law, however, was useful to me when I became Pro- 
fessor of History. I duly ate my dinners at Lincoln's 
Inn. A course of dinners was the curriculum in those 
days. For the eating of dinners as a qualification for a 
learned profession excellent reasons were given; as 
excellent reasons had been given for the exclusion of the 

[1 "An Essay on the Learning of contingent Remainders and 
executory Devises," By Charles Fearne. First pubUshed in 1772.] 

121 



122 REMINISCENCES 

half-blood from inheritance and the denial of counsel to 
felons. I was called to the Bar, but never appeared in 
Court. The only cause I ever pleaded was as Secretary 
of the Oxford Commission in defence of some of its 
ordinances before the Privy Council. The Court kindly 
gave judgment in my favour. 

"y My instructor in pleading was Temple/ a most genial 
guide over those sombre realms. He told me an anec- 
dote illustrative of the perfection of jury trial. His 
father, a country gentleman popular in the neighbour- 
hood, had a cause coming on at the Assizes. The day 
before the trial a farmer called on him and said, ''Mr. 
Temple, sir, you've a cause coming on to-morrow. 
Don't you be af eared, sir; I'm on the jury. I've just 
bought a new pair of leather breeches, and I'll sit a hole 
in 'em afore I find agin yer." 
Though I never practised Law, I saw something of 

[> " Temple " in the MS. But Sir J. Gardner D. Engleheart is 
kind enough to write to me thus : " His name was Templar, and 
he had chambers in the Middle Temple where Smith and I read for 
a few months in 1847 or 1848, and learnt, or thought we learnt, 
' special pleading ' intricacies. . . . Templer was, I think, a 
Devonshire man, a relation or a very intimate friend of the 
Rajah of Borneo." — Acting on this clue, Mr. C. E. A. Bedwell, Li- 
brarian of the Middle Temple, is good enough to do me the service 
of identifying him as John Charles Templer, younger son of James 
Templer of The Grove, Bridport. He was born in 1814 ; edu- 
cated at Westminster School ; entered Trinity College, Cambridge 
— A.B. 1836 ; called to the Bar (Inner Temple) 1853 ; and held for 
nearly thirty years a Mastership in the Court of the Exchequer. 
He was the constant friend and correspondent of Rajah Brooke. 
He died on the 11th of June, 1874. — "It is a tradition in the 
family . . . that their name was originally Temple." (See The 
Law Times for June 27, 1874 ; vol. 57, p. 165.)] 



LAW 123 

that side of life. I went two circuits with my kind and 
revered friend Judge Coleridge/ the brother of Edward 
Coleridge, my Eton Tutor, as his Marshal. The office 
was almost honorary, but its holder travelled and lived 
with the Judges. Pleasant trips those two circuits 
were. The second Judge on one was Vaughan Wil- 
liams,^ on the other Baron Parke. ^ Vaughan Williams 
I remember for his good humour and kindness. Parke 
was no ordinary man. His massive and powerful frame 
was the abode of an intellect not less massive and power- 
ful. Every sentence he uttered was like a die stamped 
by a mighty engine. Yet strange to say the narrowness 
of this intellect, at least in its professional aspect, was 
not less notable than its strength. As a lawyer and a 
Judge, Parke was remarkable for extreme technicality. 
" Ingenio magno, immensa dodrina, acumine mentis 
subtilissimo, leges Anglicae feliciter ad absurdum reduxit/^ 
was the epitaph, I believe, which my impertinence 
composed for him, and I trust never reached his ears. 
On the Western circuit the leading advocate was 



P Sir John Taylor Coleridge.] 

P Edward Vaughan Williams, son of Sergeant Williams, the 
author of "Williams's 'Saunders'" (the sixth and best edition of 
Sir Edmund Saunders's "Reports of Several Pleadings and Cases 
in K.B. in the Time of Charles II.," known as the 'Pleader's 
Bible ') ; appointed a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas ; retired 
in 1865 ; became a Privy Councillor and a member of the judicial 
committee of that body. He wrote much, notably a Treatise on 
the Law of Executors and Administrators. Born in 1797 ; died 
in 1875.] 

P No doubt meant for Sir James Parke, afterwards Baron 
Wensleydale. 1782-1868.] 



124 REMINISCENCES 

Cockburn/ afterwards Chief Justice. He was a bril- 
liant orator in Parliament as well as at the Bar, and 
earned his Chief Justiceship by a speech in defence of 
Palmerston.^ Yet it seemed to me that he was not so 
successful an advocate as Crowder/ who was no orator, 
indeed a tedious speaker, but master of the game, and 
particularly pertinacious and skilful in cross-examina- 
tion. Cockburn was rather too fond of showing his gift. 
If I mistake not, I once saw him rather mortified when 
a case went off in favour of his client and he missed an 
opportunity of making a great speech. 
/ Two things impressed me. One was the superior 
effect of a quiet and seemingly fair manner on a jury. 
Bullying witnesses is certainly a mistake as well as an 
offence. The natural sympathy of a juryman when a 
witness is being bullied by counsel is with the witness. 
The juryman may some day be a witness himself. The 
other thing was the command which an English Judge 
has of his Court, which, in saving of time as well as 
in security for justice, amply repays to the country the 
large salaries required to tempt the leaders from the 
Bar. I have since seen something of American Courts 
of Justice and have been struck with the contrast. A 
Judge of the American Supreme Court told me that in 
attending an English Court he had been surprised at the 

[1 Sir Alexander James Edmund Cockburn. Born 1802 ; died 

1880.] 

[2 In the House of Commons on the 28th of June, 1850.] 

[' Sir Richard Budden Crowder, Q.C. 1837 ; M.P. 1849-1854 ; 

puisne judge 1854. Born 1795 ; died 1859.] 



LAW 125 

expedition with which cases were settled, while, so far 
as he could see, justice was done. The explanation is 
the command which the English Judge has over his 
Court ; and, it must be added, the freedom with which 
he is allowed to charge the rural jury, whose power of 
reviewing and balancing the evidence would often, in a 
case at all complicated, totally fail. 

The appeal in criminal cases in America postponed 
execution in one case for nearly two years. It often 
postpones execution till the crime is forgotten and 
public sympathy passes from the victim to the 
murderer. In England, though there has been no 
appeal,^ other than occasional revision of the sentence 
by the Home Secretary, I do not remember to have 
heard of a single case in which it was proved that the 
wrong man had been hanged. Once, however, this was 
near happening. A man was under sentence for mur- 
der in Lancashire. The Home Secretary, having taken 
the opinion of the presiding Judge as to the sufficiency 
of the evidence, had gone down to the Eang at Windsor, 
leaving directions with his Under Secretary that justice 
was to take its course. In his absence came the Gov- 
ernor of Lancashire gaol, praying for a stay of execution. 
He had no new facts to present ; his only plea, the weak- 
ness of which he admitted, was that he was familiar 
with the manner of the condemned and that there was 
something in this man's manner which convinced him 

P It must be remembered that this was written before the Crimi- 
nal Appeal Act of 1907 : 7 Edw. VII, Chapter 23.] 



126 REMINISCENCES 

that the man was innocent. The Under Secretary 
repeated his chief's instructions. But the Governor 
persisted with such earnestness that at last the Under 
Secretary gave way and took it upon liim to stay exe- 
cution. Another man afterwards confessed the mur- 
der. I had this from Lord Card well. 

We had a painful scene at the trial of a woman for 
murder ; if I recollect rightly, it was for the murder of 
her own child, and for the sake of the money which she 
got from a society for the burial. The trial lasted all 
day, and the prisoner, though her life was at stake, 
fell into a state of weary apathy, as I observed prisoners 
even on trial for their lives were apt to do. The jury 
went out to consider their verdict. They returned 
with a verdict of guilty, but with a recommendation to 
mercy. When they were asked the reason of their rec- 
onamendation, the Foreman said that one of them was 
not satisfied with the evidence. They were thereupon 
sent back to reconsider their verdict. While they were 
gone, the prisoner's feelings awoke, and we had a heart- 
rending half-hour. At length the jury came in with 
an unanimous verdict of guilty. The Judge told 
me that he had no doubt that the woman had been 
rightly convicted and that there was reason for believ- 
ing that it was not her first murder. 
[Evidence of a murder can seldom be direct, and in 
the only murder-case witnessed by me in which the 
evidence was direct the result was an acquittal. It 
was a case of parricide. The prisoner and his father 



LAW 127 

were proved to have been on bad terms. One night in 
a tavern close to a bridge they quarrelled before wit- 
nesses. The old man went out; his son immediately 
followed. A man and his wife saw the son throw the 
father from the bridge into the river, where his body 
was found. They were timorous people, and ran away. 
In cross-examination this evidence was a little but not 
materially shaken. The Judge fully expected a convic- 
tion. Then came the family of the murdered man and 
the murderer, and swore a circumstantial alibi; their 
story being all true except the time, about which it was 
easy for them to agree on a concerted falsehood. The 
jury found not guilty, and the murderer threw up his 
cap and ran gleefully out of Court like a boy running 
out of school. The Judge had charged distinctly 
against an acquittal, and was certainly right. Prob- 
ably some local or personal feeling prevailed. Such, 
when the verdict was against the Judge's charge, might 
generally be taken to be the case. 

In a bill-stealing case at Bristol pitiably figured the 
last male descendant of my idol, Sir Walter Scott. He 
had been the victim of a gang of bill-stealers, but his 
own habits and associations had evidently been such as 
to disgrace his illustrious origin. There was a certain 
likeness to Sir Walter in his face, but he had nothing of 
Sir Walter's forehead. He died, I believe, soon after- 
wards. 

I was deeply impressed with the responsibility of a 
Judge presiding in a trial for murder and having to 



128 REMINISCENCES 

pronounce sentence of death. I felt thankful that the 
responsibility would never be mine. Capital punish- 
ment, experience seems to show, is the only sufficient 
safeguard for innocent life. Nor, when a man has been 
convicted of deliberate and mercenary or selfish mur- 
der, can life for him have any value. His existence 
thenceforth can be only that of a being abhorred of his 
fellows, and, if any moral sensibility linger in him, of 
himself. Othello's murder is not mercenary or selfish ; 
it springs from a passion in itself generous. We should 
not like to hang him. But he feels himself that he can- 
not live. Solitary confinement for life is worse than 
death, and it shuts out the possibility of moral re- 
generation, which only social action can produce. Yet 
it must be painful to pronounce the irrevocable doom. 
I could see that the Judges felt this, though their con- 
sciences were free, and their sensibilities, like those of 
the surgeon who performed painful operations, had been 
brought under control by habit. 

The conversation of the Judges when they came home 
to dinner was very pleasant. Without being shoppy, 
it abounded in legal anecdote. The subject of the 
liveliest stories was M. Justice Maule,^ a name now per- 
haps hardly remembered outside the profession, unless 
it be by the humorous sentence on a penniless man 
convicted of bigamy which was believed to have helped 
in bringing about a reform of the divorce law. Maule 

[' Sir William Henry Maule, Baron of the Exchequer 1839 ; 
transferred to Common Pleas 1839. Born 1788 ; died 1858.] 



LAW 129 

seemed to have been a man of rather loose habits and 
opinions, who looked down from the height of an im- 
perial intellect upon the crowd, genial at heart, but out- 
wardly cynical and freely indulging his satiric vein. 
He hated Coventry, which, though full of interesting 
antiquities, must be allowed to have a somewhat 
mouldy look. A witness there was slow in answering. 
"Witness," said Maule from the Bench, "you take five 
minutes for each answer; and you seem to forget that 
all that time I am at Coventry." There were probably 
editorial comments next morning. A case involving 
indelicate details was being tried. Maule recom- 
mended ladies to leave the Court. Some ladies, prob- 
ably not understanding the recommendation, remained. 
As the plot thickened the examining counsel paused, 
looked at the ladies, and then at the Judge, thinking 
that the warning should be repeated. "Oh," said 
Maule, "go on, Mr. Blank; the ladies like it, and you 
needn't mind me." 

Maule, like many men of genius, was free in his 
habits, and many anecdotes were the consequence. 
One was that once when rushing out of his bedroom 
calling "Fire!" the porter conjured him to go to bed 
again. 

The Bar was evidently becoming overcrowded. In 
former days there had been a social as well as a profes- 
sional line between the grade of Barrister and that of 
Solicitor, and the Solicitor having no son or nephew of 
his own at the Bar, was at liberty to give a brief to any 



130 REMINISCENCES 

young man of promise. But by this time the social line 
had been effaced, the Solicitor had connections at the 
Bar to whom he could without injustice to the client 
give the junior work ; and thus for a young man with- 
out connections the door was closed. Weary years of 
solitary waiting, perhaps unrewarded after all, were his. 
Under the American and Canadian system, which fuses 
the grades and permits the formation of legal firms, the 
young man, if he gets little pay, escapes the solitude and 
the dreary inaction of English brieflessness. 

A friend of mine on taking office asked me to find him 
a secretary, saying that I must know a number of clever 
young Oxford men. I replied that I did, but that I 
was not sure they would suit his work, and he had better 
let me try to find a briefless barrister. He scouted 
the idea that any barrister would take a place with so 
moderate a salary and no expectations. I went to the 
chambers of a friend whom I knew to have every quali- 
fication for success at the Bar, but believed not to have 
succeeded. I found him sitting without employment 
in his solitar}^ chambers. I told him faithfully what I 
had to offer. He then desired my advice. I asked 
whether he had done all in his power to put himself in 
the way of business. He told me that he had, and that 
business had once under special circumstances come to 
tantalize him, but had departed and had returned no 
more. I then advised him to accept, saying that even 
if business did come again, life would be spent. He 
took my advice ; commended himself, as I was sure he 



LAW 131 

would, by his practical ability, and became Sir Gardner 
Engleheart,^ a highly prosperous and distinguished man. 
This incident was one of the flowers that grow beside 
the rugged pathway of life. 

■ Once more at least I had a bit of good luck in this 
line. Briton Riviere,^ the great animal painter, was 
the son of a drawing-master at Oxford, who, having been 
unfortunate as a painter, was ending his life in gloom. 
His son was nevertheless bent on being a painter, and 
made a great effort to give himself a high education 
with that object. I knew nothing of painting, but I 
trusted the youth's aspiration and gave him his first 
subject. The subject, Clara bringing water to the 
wounded Marmion, which I chose, as the picture was a 
gift to a Fair for the wounded, did not suit the painter's 
genius, and the great authorities on art at Oxford pre- 
dicted that he would fail. Not long afterwards, led by 
his real genius into the right line, Briton Riviere was 
receiving large sums for his pictures, and his father's 
life closed not in gloom. 

[1 Sir John Gardner Dilman Engleheart, K.C.B., Comptroller 
of the Household of the Prince and Princess Christian from 18G6 
to 1869 ; Clerk of the Council of the Duchy of Lancaster 1872- 
1899 ; Member of the Duchy Council 1901.] 

P Mr. Briton Riviere obtained his A.R.A. in 1879, and his R.A. in 
1881. He is also an Honorary D.C.L. of Oxford.J 



CHAPTER X 

LONDON 

1845-1861 

Macaulay — Samuel Rogers — Lord Houghton — Henry Hallam — 
Milman — Thackeray — Croker — Tyudall — Herbert Spencer 

— "The Grange ' ' — Lady Ashburton — Carly le — Tennyson 

— Bishop Wilberforce — Lady Waldegrave — Parliamentary 
Debates — The Theatre — Louis Blanc — Brougham — Lady 
Dukinfield. 

Law and the three Commissions severed me from my 
College work and took me a good deal to London. 
Connections of different kinds opened to me a good deal 
of social life there. 

It was an epoch in my social life when at the din- 
ner-table of Sir R. H. Inglis/ a member for the Univer- 
sity of Oxford, high Tory, and Protestant, but genial 
friend and host of men of all parties, I first met Macau- 
lay. Macaulay did talk essays and engross the talking 
— conversation it could not be called. One could 
understand how he was a bore to other talkers. He 
evidently was to a great talker who sat next to me. 
He would seize upon a theme and dilate, with copious 
illustration, from a marvellous memory. Mention of 
the exclusive respect of the Ritualists for churches in 
the Gothic style led to an enumeration of the Fathers 

[1 Sir Robert Harry Inglis, M.A., D.C.L., F.S.A., F.R.S., second 
Baronet. He opposed parliamentary reform, Jewish relief, repeal 
of the corn laws, etc. 178&-1855.] 

132 




GoLDWiN Smith at about Forty Years op Age. 

Copy of a photograph by Mayall, of Brighton. 
(The original hangs in the Common Room of University College, Oxford.) 



LONDON 133 

of the early Church who had ministered in churches 
which were not Gothic. A question about the rules of 
equestrian statuary led to a copious dissertation proving 
that nature was the only rule. I have seen a whole 
evening party kept listening in a ring to an essay on 
final causes and the limits of their recognition, with 
numerous illustrations. But it seemed to me all ex- 
uberance, not assumption or ostentation. Once, how- 
ever, even I thought Macaulay a bore. It was at a 
breakfast at Lord Stanhope's.^ Lord Russell was begin- 
ning to give us an account of the trial of Queen Caro- 
line,^ which he had witnessed. Macaulay broke in with 
an essay, and Lord Russell was swept away by its tide. 
Of all English talkers that I ever heard, Macaulay 
seemed to me the first in brilliancy. He is the first in 
brilliancy of English writers, though not always the 
most sober or just. Of all his writings the least just, 
while it is perhaps the most brilliant, is the Essay on 
Warren Hastings. Justice has been done upon it by 
Fitzjames Stephen.^ 

Rogers * especially might well dislike Macaulay, 
against whom, with his feeble voice, he could make no 
head. He was silent during dinner. After dinner, 

[1 Philip Henry, fifth Earl Stanhope, the historian. 1805-1875.] 

P Queen of George IV.] 

P "The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah 
Impey." By Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, K.C.S.I., one of the 
Judges of the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division. In 
two volumes. London : Macmillan and Co. 1885.] 

f^ Samuel Rogers, the poet; published "Pleasures of Memory," 
1792; "Columbus," 1810; i* Human Life," 1819 ; etc. Born 1763 ; 
died in 1855.] 



134 REMINISCENCES 

when the ladies were gone, he told anecdotes in lan- 
guage evidently prepared. It was treason then to talk. 
There was certainly a strain of malice in him. He was 
sensitive on the subject of his social position, and could 
not forgive Sydney Smith for saying in his presence that 
he would "bet a cheque on Rogers and Co." Theo- 
dore Hook ^ was never tired of whipping him on that 
tender spot. He was sensitive also about his appear- 
ance, as, if he aspired to beauty, he had good reason for 
being. It was said that he had driven his foot through 
a portrait which told unflattering truth. I wish I had 
been present when the attention of the party was sud- 
denly drawn to a caricature bust of him which the host 
had inadvertently left upon the mantel-piece. The 
struggles of the party to cope with the horror, some 
taking the line that it was a likeness, others that it was 
not, were described to me as very amusing. The im- 
mortality which Rogers expected for his poems has not 
been theirs. He is not deep, yet there are passages in 
him, such as the opening lines of ''Human Life/' which 
are pleasant to my simple ear. 

COi all the social talkers I should say the pleasantest 
was Sir David Dundas,^ then Solicitor-General. He 
really conversed, and, while leading the conversation, 
drew out his company and made other people feel that 
they too had said good things. 

[1 Theodore Edward Hook, the novelist and wit. 1788-1841.] 
P Sir David Dundas, the statesman ; M.A. 1822 ; barrister 1823 ; 
M.P. 1840-1852 and 1861-1867; Q.C. 1840; Judge-Advocate- 
General 1849.] 



LONDON 135 

When the Life of Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton) ^ 
appeared, people were disappointed because it did not 
sparkle with wit. Nobody who knew him could share 
the disappointment. It was not in any witty things 
that he said, but in his manner, which was wit in itself, 
that the charm resided. His good-natured simplicity 
of speech (if that will do for a translation of naivete) had 
earned him the nickname of 'Hhe cool of the evening." 
He was an eager hunter of notorieties. It was said 
that he would have had the most noted felon of the day 
at his breakfast-table if he could. Sitting there and 
looking round on the circle, you asked yourself how 
you came into that museum. Milnes was a great and 
a most successful collector of autographs. He showed 
me on the same page some love-verses written by 
Robespierre when a youth, and a death-warrant signed 
by him under the Reign of Terror. General Grant, when 
he went to breakfast with Milnes, was presented with 
a round-robin which he had signed as a cadet at West 
Point. Milnes would not tell us how he had obtained 
it. To a collector of autographs everything is moral. 
The writer of ''Palm Leaves," ^ in which, by the way, 
there are some very pretty lines, had at one time been a 

[' Richard Monckton Milnes, first Baron Houghton, a Cam- 
bridge "Apostle " ; M.P. for Pontefract, 1837 ; interested himself in 
cop3Tight, the Philobiblon Society, Miss Nightingale's Fund, Me- 
chanics' Institutes, Penny Banks, Reform of the Franchise ; a poet 
and a writer upon political and social topics.] 

[2 "Palm Leaves." See "The Poetical Works of (Richard 
Monckton Milnes) Lord Houghton. Collected edition. Two 
vols. London: Murray. 1876. Pp. 134-168.] 



136 REMINISCENCES 

follower of Urquhart/ the devotee and political champion 
of Turkey and the East. Urquhart can hardly have been 
sane. Milnes said that once when he went to Urquhart's 
house, the door was opened by Urquhart's son stai^ 
naked ; that being the father's idea of physical education. 

Eton friendship with Hallam's son Henry opened to 
me the house of his illustrious father,^ which was no 
longer in the ''long unlovely street," but in Wilton 
Crescent. The historian was then old and bowed down 
by the loss of the son whose epitaph is "In Memoriam," 
as well as by that of his wife and his favourite daughter. 
In earlier days he had been rather a social terror. 
People in his presence had spoken in fear of contradic- 
tion. It was said that he had got out of bed in the night 
to contradict the watchman about the hour and the 
weather. Sydney Smith said that the chief use of the 
electric telegraph would be to enable Hallam to con- 
tradict a man at Birmingham. But in his old age and 
to a boy like me Hallam was all mildness and kindness. 
I see the old man now, sitting in his library, with gout in 
his hands, in mournful dignity waiting for the end. But 
he would know that his work was done. 

Milman's ^ name it now seldom heard, yet he has left 

[' David Urquhart, diplomatist ; secretary of the British Embassy 
at Constantinople ; M.P. 1847 to 1852. Born 1805 ; died 1877.) 

[2 Henry Hallam, the author of "State of Europe during the 
Middle Ages " ; "Constitutional History of England " ; "Literature 
of Europe " ; etc. Born 1777; died 1859.] 

P Henry Hart Milman, Dean of St. Paul's ; Professor of Poetry 
at Oxford, 1821-1831; best known perhaps by his "History of 
the Jews," his "History of Christianity," and his "Latin Chris- 
tianity." Born 1791 ; died 1868.] 



LONDON 137 

his mark in his Histories of the Jews and of the Latin 
Church ; nor is the '^ Martyr of Antioch " without merits 
as a poem. The author of the prize poem on the Apollo 
Belvedere ^ had set out in life with an immense Oxford 
reputation. In his History of the Jews he had as a stu- 
dent of German theology faintly anticipated the Higher 
Criticism, and incurred orthodox suspicion accordingly. 
That he had talent, a richly stored mind, and conversa- 
tional power is certain. Whether he had anything more 
is doubtful. If he had, it was stifled in him, as it was 
in other rationalist theologians, by the fatal white tie. 
\Thackeray I used to meet at the dinners of the Satur- 
day Review, but had not much intercourse with him. If 
he was cynical, his C5niicism did not appear in his face or 
manner, which betokened perfect simplicity and good 
nature. From good nature, and not from that alone, I 
cannot help thinking that he lapsed when he gibbeted 
Croker ^ in ''Vanity Fair " under the name of ''Wen- 
ham " as the parasite and pander of the Marquis of 
Hertford, easily discernible under the pseudonym of 
the "Marquis of Steyne." Croker was a rancorous 
politician, and both by his tongue and pen provoked 
bitter enmity; but there was nothing in his relation 
with Lord Hertford ^ to brand him as a parasite, much 

[1 Milman won the Newdigate Prize for English Verse in 1812.] 
P John Wilson Croker ; politician and essayist. Perhaps many 
remember him chiefly as the Editor of an edition of Boswell's 
''Johnson." 1780 to 1857.] 

[^ Francis Charles Seymour-Conway, third Marquess of Hert- 
ford ; M.P., Oxford, Lisburne, and Camelford, 1819-1822 ; Vice- 
Chamberlain to George, Prince Regent. 1777-1842.] 



138 REMINISCENCES 

less could he be supposed capable of playing the pander. 
As a leading anti-reform member of the House of Com- 
mons he had been an associate of Hertford and other 
magnates of the Tory party. The connection con- 
tinued after Croker's retirement in disgust from public 
life. Slander, under cover of a fictitious name, as I 
have said before, when the person really meant can be 
easily recognized, is at once the most deadly and the 
most cowardly of all ways of assailing character. The 
person assailed cannot defend himself without seeming 
to countenance the libel. 

In the house of Sir Roderick Murchison I used to 
meet the men of science ; but it was not till later that I 
became intimate with Huxley ^ and Tyndall.^ With 
Tyndall I became very intimate, and greatly loved him, 
though on some points we widely differed. He called 
himself a Materialist, and never allowed you to call him 
anything else, ever faithful to his formula that matter 
contained the potentiality of all life. But never was a 
man less materialist in the gross sense of the term. I 
used to think that he would have found it very difficult 
to account, on any materialistic theory, for his own sen- 
timents and aspirations. Between Huxley and Owen ' 
there was at that time war about the Hippocampus 

[1 Thomas Henry Huxley, the great comparative anatomist and 
supporter of the Darwinian hypothesis. Born 1825 ; died 1895.] 

[^ John Tyndall, the natural philosopher ; successor of Faraday 
as Superintendent of the ^ Royal Institution. Born 1820 ; died 
1893.] 

p Sir Richard Owen, the celebrated anatomist. 1804-1892.] 



LONDON 139 

Minor. That Huxley was in the right seemed to be the 
verdict of the scientific world ; had he found himself in 
the wrong, he would have frankly owned it, for no man 
could be more loyal to truth. Murchison was a man of 
large property ; he had been in the army ; had taken to 
geology and become the Amphitryon of the scientific 
world. He had been engaged in exploring the mineral 
wealth of the Ural, and became very intimate with the 
Czar,^ whose feeling toward England, as he assured me, 
I have no doubt truly, was as good as possible, she being 
in the Czar's eyes the great conservative power. The 
day before the Crimean War nobody expected or desired 
it; while it was going everybody was mad about it; 
when it was over everybody condenmed and deplored it. 
If I remember rightly, I was an early subscriber to 
Herbert Spencer's ^ works. But it was not till much 
later, I think in 1876, that I became well acquainted 
with the man. We were staying at Buxton together. 
If a new moral world is built upon materialism, Herbert 
Spencer will have been one of the chief builders. In 
any case, he was a shining light and a power. Of his 
personal eccentricities plenty of stories have been told. 
His nervous sensibility was extreme. A game of bil- 
liards was enough to deprive him of his night's rest. He 
had been looking forward with pleasure to a meeting 
with Huxley; but he gave it up because there was a 



[1 Nicholas I.] 

[2 Herbert Spencer, author of the Synthetic Philosophy. Born 
1820 ; died 1903.] 



140 REMINISCENCES 

difference on some scientific question between them, and 
this might have given rise to an argmnent which 
Spencer's nerves could not bear. A Hterary flippancy * 
of mine once caused an estrangement between us, but I 
am happy to say we became the best of friends again. 
The most interesting of my social experiences, how- 
ever, were my visits to The Grange, a name familiar to 
all who have read the Life of Carlyle. Lord Ashbur- 
ton,^ of the then immensely wealthy House of Baring, 
was a man of intellect and culture, and by no means a 
social cipher, though a less important figure than his 
wife. Lady Ashburton ^ was a great lady, perhaps 
the nearest counterpart that England could produce to 
the queen of a French salon before the Revolution. In 
person, though not beautiful, she was majestic. Her 
wit was of the very brightest, and dearly she loved to 
give it play. She had at the same time depth of charac- 

[1 Mr. Goldwin Smith said of Spencer's famous definition of Evo- 
lution — "While an aggregate evolves, not only the matter composing 
it, but also the motion of that matter, passes from an indefinite 
incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity'* 
("Data of Ethics," chap, v., §24) — that "the universe may well 
have heaved a sigh of relief when, through the cerebration of an 
eminent thinker, it had been delivered of this account of itself." — 
See Contemporary Review, vol. xli, pp. 335, et seq., Feb., 1882 : " Has 
Science yet Found a New Basis for Morality? " Herbert Spencer 
replied in the next number of the Review with an article on " Pro- 
fessor Goldwin Smith as a Critic," in which the critic was accused 
of " grave misrepresentation."] 

[- William Bingham Baring, second Baron Ashburton. 1799- 
1864.] 

[' This was Lord Ashburton's first wife. She had been Lady 
Harriet Mary Montagu, eldest daughter of the sixth Earl of Sand- 
wich.) 



LONDON 141 

ter and tenderness of feeling. It was a mistake to think 
that she was a Mrs. Leo Hunter on a grand scale. She 
cared as little for reputation in itself as she did for rank 
or wealth. To form a circle of brilliant talkers with her- 
self as its centre was her aim ; and in this she fully suc- 
ceeded. One or two appreciative listeners were also 
desirable, and were there. Beauty may have been a 
passport, at least I do not know what but the wonder- 
ful beauty of Mrs. Bigelow Lawrence, Sally Ward ^ 
that had been, could have brought her and her not 
intellectually brilliant husband to The Grange. Every- 
thing was arranged for conversation. Breakfast was a 
function, and was served on round tables, each of a 
conversational size. The last comer always took Lady 
Ashburton out to dinner, that he might be thoroughly 
introduced into the circle. 

Carlyle ^ was always there. He was a great favourite 
of Lady Ashburton. His talk was like his books, but 
wilder ; in truth, his pessimism was monotonous and 
sometimes wearisome, though he could not fail to say 
striking things, still less to use striking words. One 
summer evening we came out after dinner on the ter- 

[1 Sally Ward was the daughter of Robert J. Ward, of Kentucky. 
She is described as "a radiant woman, instinct with sparkling life 
from the crown of her beautiful head to the tips of her slender feet, 
spoiled, wilful, lovely, and loving." Before she was twenty, she 
married Bigelow Lawrence of Boston ; but applied for and obtained 
a divorce within a year. She had three other husbands. Died in 
1898. — See "Famous American Belles of the Nineteenth Century." 
By Virginia Tatnall Peacock. Philadelphia: Lippincott. 1901. 
Pp. 148 et seq.] 

[2 Thomas Carlyle, born 1795 ; died 1881.] 



142 REMINISCENCES 

race. There was a bright moon, and for a few minutes 
we all looked at it in silence, each probably having his 
own thoughts. At last a voice was heard. ''Puirauld 
creature." Whether the moon was an object of pity 
in itself, or because she was doomed to look down on 
human affairs, I failed to divine. 

Tennyson was there. I adored the poet, and should 
have liked to be able to worship the man. His self- 
consciousness and sensitiveness to criticism were ex- 
treme. One of the party, whose name I forget, but who 
acted as a sort of aide-de-camp to Lady Ashburton, 
asked me what I thought of Tennyson. I said that 
it was most interesting to meet him. '^But is he not 
very sensitive? " "Sensitive ! I should think he was. 
If my little girl were to tell him that his whiskers were 
ugly, he wouldn't forget it for a month." 

■ They asked Tennyson to read some of his own poetry 
aloud. This he was understood to be fond of doing. 
But to the general disappointment he refused. At his 
side was sitting Carlyle, who had been publishing his 
contempt of poetry. Immolating myself to the public 
cause, I went over to Carlyle and asked him to come for 
a walk in the grounds. While we were gone, the reading 
came off. I was reminded of this incident, which I had 
long forgotten, by a reference to it the other day in the 
Illustrated London News. 

Mrs. Carlyle was at The Grange. She was a modest 
personage, rather in the background. Nobody knew 
that she was so clever as her letters prove her to have 



LONDON 143 

been. But that Lady Ashburton ever gave her serious 
cause for unhappiness I do not in the least beheve. 
Lady Ashburton was a queen, and may, like other 
Royalties, have been sometimes a little high; but she 
was incapable of doing anything unfeeling. I had a 
great respect for her character as well as admiration for 
her wit, and have always cherished the memory of the 
message which she sent me from her death-bed. 

In the circle of The Grange was to be seen Bishop 
Wilberforce. He had good right to be there, for he was 
a very brilliant talker, especially happy in repartee. 
Of his eminent ability there could be no doubt. He 
would certainly have made his mark as an advocate or 
a politician. He set out as an Evangelical like his ^ 
father ; he became, as was natural for a bishop, a High -^^-^"®'~V'^ 
Churchman. He tried to combine both systems and ^J^Laaa/^ 
to ride two horses with their heads turned different 
ways. This in itself gave him, perhaps undeservedly, 
an air of duplicity and a nickname. He was, however, 
morbidly desirous of influence, which he seemed even to 
cultivate without definite object. It was said that he 
would have liked to be on the committee of every Club 
in London. He had the general reputation of not being 
strictly veracious; nor, as I had once occasion to see, 
was he, when Church party was in question, inflexibly 
just. He turned upon the Hampden question ^ when 
he found that liis course was giving offence at Court, 

[* That is, the appointment of the Reverend Renn Dickson Hamp- 
den to the see of Hereford, 1847.] 



144 REMINISCENCES 

and was upbraided with tergiversation by his party. 
He turned upon the Irish Church question just in time 
to be promoted from Oxford to Winchester, and to 
what he probably coveted more than the income, the 
Chancellorship of the Garter; and when he put forth a 
pathetic valedictory assuring the clergy of Oxford that 
he was agonized at leaving them, but could not disobey 
the call of the Spirit, he provoked a smile. There could 
be no question as to his meritorious activity in his 
diocese. He was at first a fine preacher, but at last his 
incessant activity, leaving no time for reading or 
thought, impaired the matter of his sermons and com- 
pelled him to make up for lack of substance by delivery, 
of which, having an admirable voice and manner, he 
remained a perfect master. Too much allowance can 
hardly be made for the difficulties of the Mitre in those 
times. 

A very different realm from The Grange was Straw- 
berry Hill, where reigned Frances, Lady Waldegrave,^ 
whose husband, Lord Carlingford,^ and I were College 
friends. To the sham Gothic mansion built by the 
virtuoso Horace Walpole on the bank of the Thames 
had been added an enchanted castle of pleasure, with 
gorgeous salons and magnificent grounds for out-of- 
door fetes stretching along the river. Frances, Lady 
Waldegrave, had been four times wedded. Thrice, 

[1 Frances Elizabeth Anne, Countess Waldegrave. 1821-1879.] 
[- Chichester Samuel Fortesque, afterwards Parkinson-Fortesque, 
Baron CarUngford, 1823-1898.] 



LONDON 145 

it was said, she had married for title or wealth; the 
fourth time for love. She was a rather florid beauty, 
taking perhaps to an elderly man. In her fourth wed- 
lock she had chosen well, for Carlingford was a man of 
whom she might be proud, since he became a Cabinet 
Minister, and at the same time a domestic pillow. He 
was an Irishman, and when in the theatre at Dublin 
the jocular crowd asked his spouse which of her four 
husbands she liked best, she could turn their imperti- 
nence to plaudits by saying, ^'The Irishman, of course." 
She was the daughter of Braham ^ the singer, and one of 
the best of daughters, for in her grandeur she never 
failed in devoted attachment to her father, whose 
portrait hung conspicuous upon her wall. Her am- 
bition was to gather the whole of the great world. Roy- 
alty included, in her salons at Strawberry Hill. In this 
she thoroughly succeeded. Curiously enough, the great 
fortune which she had accumulated by her successive 
marriages she had just run through when she died. 
After her death, I was staying with her husband at the 
place in the country where she was buried. There she 
lay, with a list of her husbands on her monument. 
Her fourth husband could not bear himself to take me 
to the grave; he had to put me in the hands of the 
curate. Utterly unlike to Harriet Lady Ashburton 
was Frances Lady Waldegrave; yet Frances Lady 
Waldegrave, to use Carlyle's phrase, was not without 
an eye, and she could interest herself in other subjects 

[1 John Braham, the tenor singer. 1774 (?)-1856.] 



146 REMINISCENCES 

than balls and garden parties when she had a quiet 
hour. 

It was a mark of the difference between the two social 
monarchies that while at The Grange breakfast, as I 
have said, was a conversational function for which ar- 
rangements were made, at Strawberry Hill you came 
down to breakfast at your own hour and were served 
separately from a carte. The host and hostess did not 
appear till luncheon. 

Now the splendour has departed from Strawberry 
Hill, from the gilded salons and the magnificent grounds. 
The place has become a tea-garden, or something less 
elysian still. Sic transit gloria mundi. 

In a mansion close to Strawberry Hill lived in luxu- 
rious exile the Due d'Aumale ^ and the Comte de Paris.^ 
D'Aumale, it seemed to me, would have made a strong 
Pretender ; he was a soldier and a man of action, highly 
cultivated withal. But he was not the heir, and it 
seems that when he got back to France he gave himself 
up to pleasure. The Comte de Paris was a gentle 
creature who never could have made a Pretender with- 
out a Morny ^ to play his game. 

Among the intellectual magnates who were kind to 
me I must not forget Lord Stanhope.^ I spent some 

[1 Henri Eugene Philippe Louis d'Orleans, Due d'Aumale, fourth 
son of Louis Philippe ; born 1822.] 

[2 Louis Philippe Albert d'Orleans, Comte de Paris, grandson of 
Louis Philippe. 1838-1894.] 

[' Charles Auguste Louis Joseph, Due de Morny, half brother of 
Napoleon III ; a leading spirit in the coup d'etat of December, 1851.] 

[^ Phihp Henry Stanhope, fifth Earl Stanhope, author of ."His- 



LONDON 147 

very pleasant days at Chevening ^ with a literary com- 
pany, two members of which were Mr. and Mrs. Grote.^ 
Grote was quiet and retiring. Mrs. Grote was un- 
retiring, a rather formidable woman with a very sharp 
wit. Stanhope's History is not a masterpiece; but it 
is interesting and fair, the work of a man of sense and 
a gentleman. The last qualification is valuable to an 
historian of the politics of aristocratic days. 
\ Hard by lived also my great friend Grant Duff,^ a 
most accomplished politician and man of the world, 
whose name calls up the memory of pleasant hours. 
When he was leaving for his government in India, we 
gave him a farewell banquet at a great hotel. I, having 
come some distance, took a bed there. In the morning 
I was awakened by a knock at my door and a female 
voice offering me brandy and soda. The more I de- 
clined the cup of health, the more pressingly it was 
offered. Was it intended for some other revellers, 
or was it taken for granted that those who had dined 
there overnight must want brandy and soda in the 
morning ? 

From Chevening we visited Knole, the country seat 

tory of the War of Succession in Spain" ; "History of England from 
the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles " ; "History of Eng- 
land comprising the Reign of Queen Anne until the Peace of 
Utrecht " ; etc. 1805-1875.] 

[^ The seat of the Earls Stanhope, at Sevenoaks.] 
[- George Grote, the historian of Greece. 1794—1871. — Mrs. 
Grote had been Harriet Lewin.] 

P James Grant Duff, Bombay Grenadiers ; Resident of Poona ; 
Resident of Sattara; published a "History of the Mahrattas." 
1789-1858.] 



148 REMINISCENCES 

of Lord Sackville ^ near Sevenoaks. I there found a 
portrait of Walsingham ^ which confirmed me in the 
behef that a portrait which on leaving Oxford I made 
over to the Bodleian, it having passed for a portrait of 
Sir Thomas Bodley,^ was really a portrait of Elizabeth's 
great Secretary of State. Each portrait has the des- 
patch symbolical of the Secretaryship, as the white 
wand is of the Treasurership, in its hand. The date 
of the subject's age on the picture does not exactly 
agree with Bodley's age. The date of Walsingham's 
birth is uncertain. His monument in St. Paul's was 
destroyed by fire. 

A party at a country house was seldom complete with- 
out Hayward,* the prince of anecdotists and the great 
authority on social history and gossip. His anecdotes 
certainly gained embellishment by repetition, and were, 
therefore, perhaps more amusing than authentic. He 
was fond of dissolving the false pearls of history and 
destroying heroic illusions. It was with much gusto 
that he assured us that Pitt's last words were, not "Oh ! 
my country! how I leave my country!" but, ''I think 
I could eat one of Bellamy's meat pies." Disraeli, 
whom he must in some way have offended, has alluded 

[* Mortimer Saclcville-West, first Baron Sackville.] 
[- Sir Francis Walsingham, the Elizabethan statesman. 1530( ?)- 
1590.] 

[' The founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford. 1545-1613.] 
[* Abraham Hayward, the essayist ; author of " The Art of Din- 
ing," *' Sketches of Eminent Statesmen and Writers," and of three 
series of Essays ; editor of Mrs. Piozzi's "Autobiography," etc. 
1801-1884.] 



LONDON 149 

to him in ''Lothair" as "a little parasite." Little he 
was in stature, but he was no parasite ; on the contrary 
he bore himself very much as the master of the circle. 
He was a bachelor ; his pen must have brought him an 
income; and as he had many friends among the po- 
litical leaders, he could have got an appointment, if he 
had needed it. But he, no doubt, prized his freedom. 
I had a good friend in the Speaker of the House of 
Commons, Mr. Denison,^ afterwards Lord Ossington, 
through whose interest I enjoyed debates. He would 
always get me under the gallery or in some place on the 
floor of the House. It is on the floor of the House only 
that a debate can be enjoyed. I shall have occasion 
further on to mention one or two of the great speakers. 
Of those I heard the general level did not seem to me to 
be high. There was great waste of time in droning 
through speeches which were mere dilutions of the morn- 
ing's editorials. Why cannot each speaker, except the 
leaders, instead of wandering over the whole subject, 
take a point and press it home ? The whole discussion, 
however, is little more than a great party demonstra- 
tion. The name "deliberative assembly" is a mockery. 
On any party question there is no more deliberation 
than there is in the interchange of volleys between two 
lines of battle. Besides, everyone is talking less to the 
House than to the Reporters. While I am in a fault- 
finding mood I may say that the House, and still more 

[' John Evelyn Denison, first Viscount Ossington, Speaker from 
1857 to 1872.1 



150 REMINISCENCES 

the House of Lords, is too highly decorated for a hall of 
debate, where nothing should divert the eye from the 
speaker. Ventilation and acoustics at that time were 
bad. It seems that architectural science has not yet 
learned to produce with certainty a room in which you 
can be heard, a place in which you can breathe, or a 
chimney which will not smoke. The acoustics of the 
House of Lords were worse than those of the House of 
Commons. It was said that the leader of the Opposi- 
tion went out and bought an evening paper to learn 
what the head of the Government was talking about. 
During the passage of the Oxford University Bill I was 
placed on the steps of the throne to watch the Bill and 
communicate with the Minister in charge. On that 
spot, where nobody sits, you could hear the speakers on 
both sides well. 

I enjoyed the theatre, and had in Patrick Comyn ^ 
[sic] and Smyth Pigott ^ pleasant companions to add to 
my enjoyment. Of all the acting that I saw the grand- 
est was that of Ristori ^ in ' ' Gamma ' ' ; above all, in the 

[1 Patrick Cumin, C.B., was the son of William Cumin, M.D., 
of Clifton (so the Annual Register; the Alumni Oxonienses saj'^s 
Glasgow). He graduated at Oxford (BalUol College) in 1845 ; 
took his M.A. in 1850 ; was a Barrister-at-Law of the Inner Temple ; 
and was for many years Secretary of the Education Department 
of the Privy Council. He is described to me as "a pleasant friend 
and an energetic official." Died on the 11th of January, 1890, 
aged 65-1 

[2 Edward Francis Smyth Pygott, for twenty years in the Lord 
Chamberlain's Department as Examiner of Stage Plays. Born in 
1824 ; died February 23rd, 1895.] 

[» Adelaide Ristori, Marquise Capranica del GriUo, the celebrated 
Italian tragedienne ; born in 1821.] 



LONDON 151 

famous scene in which Camma elicits the secret of her 
husband's murder by affecting love of the murderer, 
then entices him to drinking the poisoned cup, drinks 
of it herself, and dies. The plot, which is from Plu- 
tarch, Tennyson has taken for his ''Cup." Of Rachel ^ 
Matthew Arnold has said that she began where Sara 
Bernhardt ended. She was passion, especially of the 
Satanic kind, incarnate. ''Adrienne Lecouvreur" was 
her topping part, and the death scene, for which she was 
supposed to have studied in a hospital, was her topping 
scene. Her direct opposite was the female star of the 
English stage, Helen Faucit,^ who was all tenderness. 
About Wigan, ^ our male star, there seems to have been 
a difference of opinion. His friends asserted that he 
alone could act a gentleman; his critics said the re- 
verse. Some of the opera people acted as well as sang 
well ; Jenny Lind * did in pieces that suited her, such as 
''Gazza I^adra" and "Figlia del Regimento." Some- 
thing was missed when, having renounced opera, she 
sang at concerts. Tietjens ^ also acted well in such a 
part as ''Lucrezia Borgia"; while her companion Al- 
boni,^ supreme and rapturously applauded as a singer, 

[1 Elisa FSlix, called Rachel, the great French actress. 1821- 
1858. — Matthew Arnold's saying is in his Essay on "The French 
Play in London." See his "Works" {Mition de luxe), vol. xi, 
p. 205. London : Macmillan ; and Smith Elder.] 

[2 Helena Saville Faueit, afterwards Lady Martin (wife of Sir 
Theodore Martin). 1817-1898.] 

[» Alfred Sydney Wigan. 1814-1878.] 

[* Johanna Maria Lind, married Mr. Otto Goldschmidt. 1820- 
1887.] 

[■* Teresa Tietjens, or Titiens, a German singer. 1834-1877.] 

[' Marietta Alboni, a celebrated Itahan singer ; born in 1824.] 



152 REMINISCENCES 

stalked the stage in her tabard with the grace of a 
female elephant. Jenny Lind's character enhanced 
her popularity. She was no harpy, like other prima 
donnas, but left something for the lesser folk. I have 
spoken of the friendship between Jenny and Arthur 
Stanley, who was, like Johnson, dead to the charms of 
music, and said that the only thing that pleased him was 
a drum solo. Where he could have heard a drum solo we 
never could ascertain. Mario ^ and Grisi^ having spent 
the fortunes which they had made, they were forced 
to return to the stage. But superannuated as they 
were, I fancy their audience, though it received them 
well, took more pleasure in seeing than in hearing them. 

Charles Kean^ acted ''Hamlet" with applause; yet, 
I thought, not well. Shakespeare is a philosophic poet 
as well as a dramatist, and sometimes transcends the 
dramatic sphere. Perhaps one who had the sensibility 
to feel the part of Hamlet would scarcely have the 
nerve to act it. The best Hamlet I ever saw was that 
of the German Devrient,* who did at all events solilo- 
quize the soliloquy, not declaim it. 

I enjoyed a visit to Sadler's Wells, ^ the people's 



P Joseph Mario, called Marquis dei Candia, called "a lyric artist." 
1810-1833. — He married Grisi.] 

P Giulia Grisi, dame Gerard de Meley. She was a sister of 
Giuditta Grisi, the singer ; and a cousin of Carlotta Grisi, the dancer. 
1812-18G9.] 

p Charles John Kean, second son of Edmund. 1811( ?)-1868.] 

[* It is difiBcult to determine which, among the many actors who 
bore this name, is meant. Perhaps Gustavo Emile, who died at 
Dresden in 1872.] p In Islington.] 



LONDON 153 

theatre, long since improved out of existence. It was 
pleasant to see the loyalty of the people to Shake- 
speare. The taste of the people, being simple, is sound. 
Phelps,^ at Sadler's Wells, was a fine declaimer. He 
gave well Prosperous speech in ''The Tempest." 

But all the theatres, and especially Sadler's Wells, 
suffered from Charles Kean's fancy for spectacle. He 
imagined that Shakespeare was an antiquarian, and put 
on his plays in the garb of the historic period. So we 
had the Duke of Athens, who to Shakespeare was like a 
Duke of Milan, talking of nunneries; fairies in Athe- 
nian groves ; and two Athenian gentlemen going out to 
fight a duel with Grecian swords. In ''Macbeth" we 
had the rude simplicity of primitive Scotland, and the 
throne, to which Macbeth's ambition climbed through 
treason and murder, was a wooden stool. Shakespeare 
paid no more respect to historical character than to 
geography, and he had no scenery at all. 

I was in a box at the opera one evening, with two 
friends. The party next night was to meet again. I 
arrived first. Presently one of the other two came in. 
I asked after the third, and was horrified by the reply 
that he had shot himself that afternoon. The evening 
before he had apparently been in the best of spirits. He 
was 3'oung and wealthy. I never learned the cause of 
his weariness of life. The weather was very sultry and 
bad for the liver. 

[* Samuel Phelps, who "made Shakespeare pay " for nearly twenty 
years at Sadler's Wells. Born 1804 ; died 1878.] 



154 REMINISCENCES 

Having spoken of E. S. Pigott, I may say that he was 
very intimate with Dickens, whom I only once saw, 
and whom I understood it was difficult to meet, as he 
lived very much in a choice circle of his intimate 
friends. Pigott told me his opinion of the unhappy 
relations between Dickens and his wife, which came too 
much before the world. It was a common case ; Dick- 
ens had married at a low level, and his wife had not 
risen with him; otherwise, according to Pigott, an 
excellent judge, there was no fault on her side. The 
matrimonial history of writers of works of imagination 
has often been unhappy. Their imagination turns a 
woman into an angel, and then they find that she is a 
woman. About this time the scandalous world was 
being regaled with the war between Bulwer ^ and his 
wife. When Bulwer was being elected at Hertford,' 
his consort drove up in a post-chaise, mounted the 
hustings, and delivered a philippic against him. Their 
son was credited with some lines on the occasion : — 

( Who came to Hertford in a chaise, 
And littered anything but praise, 
About the author of my days ? 
My Mother. 

If Dickens's own home was not happy, few writers 
have done more to make other homes happy and dif- 
fuse kindly feelings. His " Christmas Carol" is an 
Evangel. 

[' Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lyt- 
ton, the noveHst. 1803-1873.] 
[' June the 8th, 1858.] 



LONDON 155 

I became intimate with some of the exiles driven to 
England by the political storms of Europe. Among 
them was Louis Blanc, of whom I saw a good deal. 
I took more to the Italian exiles/ Mazzini, Saffi, and 
Arrivabene, whose cause, that of Italian independence, 
was perfectly pure. To Mazzini, whose acquaintance 
I formed at the house of Sir James Stansfield,^ I took 
very much. He seemed to me a genuine servant of 
humanity, regarding Italian nationality, to the rescue 
of which he gave his life, as subservient to the general 
good of mankind. He denied that he had been con- 
cerned in any assassination plot. With Garibaldi ^ I 
exchanged letters, but we never met. He was coming 
to Oxford and to my house when he was suddenly 
whisked out of the coimtry, by what influence is a 
mystery to this hour. For myself, I never doubted 
that it was by the influence of the Queen. Victoria 
was a Stuart upon a Hanoverian throne. A friend of 
mine at Court heard Disraeli feeding with slanderous 
stories her hatred of Garibaldi. She bitterly hated 
Bismarck also for having put an end to the Kingdom of 
Hanover. Perhaps that may have been partly the 
account of her sympathy with France against Germany. 
The French Emperor,* to whose influence some sus- 

[1 See footnotes on page 96 ; Chapter VI.] 

[^ Sir James Stansfield, Liberal M.P. ; held high political posts ; 
strong upholder of the cause of Italian unity. 1820-1898.] 

[' Giuseppe Garibaldi, the celebrated Italian patriot, was born 
at Nice in 1807, and died in 1882.] 

[< Napoleon III.] 



156 REMINISCENCES 

pected the spiriting-away of Garibaldi was due, had in 
him still something of the Revolutionist and an eye to 
possible assistance from that side. 

Two famous relics of a political generation gone by, 
Brougham ^ and Lyndhurst/ I just saw. Lyndhurst 
I heard make a speech in the House of Lords, too cur- 
sory for the display of his mighty reasoning powers. 
It was curious to see a man who had been at Boston a 
British subject before the American Revolution. 

Nothing can adequately paint the galvanic motions 
of Brougham's face and figure. His activity and pro- 
ductiveness, as is well known, were miraculous. He as- 
pired to leadership not only in law, politics, and litera- 
ture, but in science. Lord Stanhope used to tell a 
story of the editor of a new magazine who humbly 
petitioned Brougham for an article to grace his first 
number. The happy man received three articles by 
return of post ! Brougham's private secretary, Sir 
Denis le Marchant,^ told me that Brougham, when he 
was leading at once in the Bar and in Parliament, mak- 
ing one speech seven hours long, could do with two 
hours' sleep each night. On Saturday afternoon, he 
would turn in till Monday morning. When he was in 
full practice on the northern circuit and at the same 

[1 Henry Peter Brougham, Baron Brougham and Vaux ; Lord 
ChanceUor. 1778-1868.] 

[2 John Singleton Copley, the younger, Baron Lyndhurst ; Lord 
ChanceUor. 1772-1863.] 

[3 Sir Denis le Marchant, first Baronet ; Liberal M.P. 1795- 
1874.] 



LONDON 157 

time candidate for the representation of Yorkshire in 
Parhament, he would, after a long day in court, get into 
a post-chaise and go very long distances to election 
meetings. Summoned suddenly to attend his client 
Queen Caroline on a great emergency, he slept all the 
way in the carriage. For this preternatural activity, 
however, he paid by long fits of depression. His 
sister,^ who was with us at Mortimer, was grotesquely 
like him in all respects, and was subject to the same fits 
of depression, which, however, in her case, were more 
lasting. Brougham was very emotional, and wept 
bitterly when he heard of the death of an old political 
associate. His attempt to revive his failing notoriety 
by circulating a report of his having been killed by an 
accident took in the whole press except the Times. 

Eton introduced me, among other houses, to that of 
Lord Chancellor Campbell,^ whose son, Lord Strathe- 
den that afterwards was, and I had been in the same 
boarding-house. It was of Lord Campbell as the author 
of the ''Lives of the Chancellors" that Lyndhurst said 
he had added a pang to death. He may not be strictly 
accurate or impartial, but his book is racy of the pro- 
fession. It was to Campbell that was due the putting 
the plaintiff in a libel case into the witness-box. It 
seems doubtful whether he did well. The consequence 
is apt to be, instead of the trial of the defendant for his 

V Query. — According to Burke, Henry, first Lord Brougham 
and Vaux, had no sister.] 

p John Campbell, first Baron Campbell, Lord Chancellor. 1779- 
1861.1 



158 REMINISCENCES 

slander, the trial of the person libelled on his general 
character and life. 

I spent a day with Lushington/ Lady Byron's Coun- 
sel, but nothing was said about the famous case. Lush- 
ington would never speak of it. His lips might be 
sealed by professional duty. Yet it seems strange that 
when the portentous version of the matter adopted by 
Mrs. Beecher Stowe was in circulation, he should not, if 
he could with truth, have denied that there was any- 
thing more than a matrimonial quarrel of the common 
kind. In my childhood I had seen Lushington chaired 
on his election for Reading.^ 

Blessed are Clubs, and above all Clubs in my memory 
the Athenaeum, with its splendid library and its social 
opportunities. Without Clubs what would bachelor- 
life in London be? We know pretty well from the 
record of days before them. Instead of being de- 
nounced as hostile to marriage, the Clubs ought to be 
credited with keeping young men fit for it. Even with 
a Club, the life of a young man in a city where he has 
no home is not free from danger. In trying many 
years afterwards to assist in the foundation of a 
good Club for young men in Toronto, I was acting on 
observations made during my own stay in London. 

Without a home in London, I could myself hardly 
be said to be. I had something like a home in the house 

P Stephen Lushington. 1782-1873.] 

p Lushington contested Reading unsuccessfully in 1830, but was 
next year returned for Winchelsea : perhaps he was chaired at Read- 
ing then. — Ed.] 



LONDON 159 

of my father's brother-in-law, the Rev. Sir Henry 
Dukinfield/ who had succeeded to the Baronetcy 
on the death of his brother after being for some time 
pastor of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. Sir Henry was an 
active and valued coadjutor of Blomfield, the Bishop 
of London, a statesman prelate who strove to adapt 
the Church to the times and renew her hold upon the 
nation not by reviving her claims to priestly authority, 
but by placing her in the van of social improvement. 
He was the apostle of public baths and wash-houses.^ 
His wife. Lady Dukinfield,^ was my ideal of a lovely 
and graceful English woman. Nor was her character 
less graceful than her form and manner. Her portrait * 
bears me out. La belle Anglaise, she had been called 
in France, and her beauty was of the kind that loses 
least by age. She was a niece of Craufurd,^ Welling- 
ton's Peninsula General. Her father was a diplo- 

[' See note at the foot of the first page of Chapter II.] 

P "He suggested the passing of the Act of Parliament (9th and 
10th Vict. c. 74), which is generally caUed by his name, empowering 
vestries to raise money on the parish rates for the erection and 
support of Baths and Washhouses for the poor." — See "A Memoir 
of the Rev. Sir Henry Robert Dukinfield, Bart." Printed for 
Private Circulation. London: W. H. Dalton. 1861. Page 57.] 

P She was a daughter of Sir James Craufurd, Baronet, who was 
British Resident at Hamburg from 1798 to 1803, and afterwards 
Minister Plenipotentiary at Copenhagen. She married, first Gen- 
eral Chowne ; second. Sir Henry Dukinfield.] 

[* By George Richmond (1809-1896). It hangs in the drawing- 
room of The Grange at Toronto.] 

P General Robert Craufurd, third son of Sir Alexander Craufurd, 
first Baronet, of Newark, Ayrshire, and brother of Sir Charles 
Gregan-CraufiH-d, G.C.B. Born 1764; killed at Ciudad Rodrigo, 
January the 24th, 1812.] 



160 REMINISCENCES 

matist. She was with him at Brussels at the time of 
Waterloo, and was the last survivor but one of those 
who had danced at the famous Ball. Her memory 
was perfectly clear. They all knew that the French 
were advancing. But Wellington, to prevent a panic, 
had desired that the Ball might take place. The lodg- 
ings of Lady Dukinfield's father were opposite to the 
quarters of the Duke, whom she saw mount his horse 
and ride forth. She also saw the Guards, her brother's 
regiment, march out. On the day of Waterloo, she 
and her father were dining with the Prince de Conde,^ 
when news came that the British were totally defeated 
and the French were marching on Brussels. The 
Prince called for his horses and went off to Ghent. 
Lady Dukinfield's father hurried her home, but found 
that his horses had been stolen. They presently got 
horses and set out for Ghent, finding the road blocked 
with fugitives. Before they reached Ghent they were 
overtaken by news of the victory. I did not ask Lady 
Dukinfield where the ball had taken place. Prince 
Leopold afterwards heard her story, and I believe 
took a note of it. He may have asked the question. 

Sir Henry, a clergyman and a devout one, one day let 
fall the remark that a man's religious reputation must 
be very high to enable him to refuse a challenge to a 
duel. I note this to mark the change of sentiment. 

[1 Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Prince de Conde. 1736-1818.] 



CHAPTER XI 

JOURNALISM 

1855-1858 

Peel — The Saturday Review — Members ' of the Staff — Froude 
— Letters on the Empire. 

Living in London with leisure, I was drawn into 
journalism, and at the same time into a political con- 
nection. I wrote some articles in the Morning Chroni- 
cle, the organ of the Peelites, as the section of the Con- 
servative party, comprising Gladstone, the Duke of 
Newcastle,^ Sidney Herbert,^ Cardwell,^ and Canning,* 
which had adhered to Peel, was called. 

I had the greatest respect for Peel as a thoroughly 
wise and patriotic statesman, while I loathed the 
''blackguard combination," as Wellington justly called 
it, of office-seeking Whigs and Corn-Law Tories, the 
work of Disraeli, by which the Peel Government was 
overthrown. Disraeli, who had fawned on Peel in his 
"Letters of Runnymede," ^ now turned round and as- 
sailed him with rancorous and slanderous abuse. 

[1 Hem-y Pelham, fifth Duke of Newcastle. 1811-1864.] 

[2 Sidney Herbert, first Baron Herbert of Lea. 1810-1861.] 

[' Edward, Viscount CardweU. 1813-1886.] 

[* Charles John, afterwards Earl Canning ; Governor-General 
of India during the Mutiny. Born in 1812 ; died in 1862.] 

p "The Letters of Runnjonede." London: John Macrone, St. 
James's Square, mdcccxxxvi.] 

M 161 



162 REMINISCENCES 

I presently found myself on the regular staff of the 
Saturday Review. The editor and one of the proprie- 
tors was John Douglas Cook/ a singular character. He 
was a sort of filius terras. What his early history had 
been, we never could clearly learn ; it appeared that he 
had been in India ; it was certain that he had been on 
the Times. He had edited the Morning Chronicle 
during its short life as a Liberal-Conservative organ. 
He was a rough strong man, without literary culture 
or faculty. But he had great newspaper tact. Though 
he could not write himself, he instinctively knew good 
writing. His courage and self-possession were im- 
perturbable. Unrefined though he was, I became at- 
tached to him, and I cherish his memory. Our other 
proprietor was Alexander Beresford-Hope,^ a very 
wealthy man, highly cultivated, to whom I fancy the 
Review was a sort of literary yacht, though he was a 
High Churchman and inspired the religious department 
of the paper in that sense. He was generally supposed 
to have been a member of the Young England party got 
up by Disraeli, of which Lord John Manners ^ was the 
most prominent member, and which is advertised in 
"Coningsby"; but this he always denied. He was 
the son of Hope ^ the millionaire, and had married a 

[* John Douglas Cook, born in Aberdeenshire 1808( ?) ; died in 
1868.] 

p Alexander James Beresford-Hope, politician and author. 1820- 
1887.] 

p Charles Cecil John Manners, sixth Duke of Rutland. 1815-1888.] 

[* Thomas Hope, author and virtuoso ; belonged to the rich 
family of Amsterdam merchants. 1770 (?)-1831.] 



JOURNALISM 163 

daughter of Lord Salisbury/ a woman bright and brave. 
"Bedgebury" was a sumptuous chateau. In those 
days there were thirty acres of kept grass, with two 
men and a donkey always employed upon them. 
But sumptuosity was not the best of it. 

■ The other members of the original staff, if I remember 
rightly, were George Venables ; ^ Maine,^ afterwards 
Sir Henry Maine, the historical jurist; Lord Robert 
Cecil, afterwards Marquis of Salisbury ; * Hemming ; ^ 
Collett Sandars ; " and Scott,' a clerg3niian, called, from 
his cure, Scott of Hoxton. It was afterwards, I be- 
lieve, that Sir William Harcourt^ joined the staff. 
George Venables and Lord Robert Cecil were the chief 
political writers. Sandars wrote the articles on social 
subjects, for which he had a fine touch. 

[' Lady Mildred Arabella Charlotte Henrietta Cecil, eldest 
daughter of James, second Marquess of Salisbury. 1822-188L] 

[2 George Stovin Venables, Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge ; 
barrister ; journalist. Born 1810 ; died 1888.] 

P Sir Henry James Sumner Maine.* 1822-1888.] 

[* Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne Cecil, third Marquess of Salis- 
bury. 1830-1903.] 

p Probably George Wirgman Hemming, Fellow of St. John's 
College, Cambridge, Senior Wrangler, took his A.B. Degree in 1844, 
and proceeded A.M. in 1847 ; a Q.C. ; for some years Counsel for 
the University ; one of the Official Referees of the Supreme Court 
of Judicature ; Master of the Library of, and Treasurer of, Lincoln's 
Inn.] 

P Thomas Collett Sandars, a Barrister ; editor of Justinian's 
."Institutes." 1825-1894.] 

P The Rev. WUliam Scott, Vicar of St. Olave's, Jewry, London. 
1813-1872.] 

[* The Right Hon'ble Sir William George Granville Venables- 
Vernon-Harcourt ; Solicitor-General, 1873 ; Home Secretary, 1880 ; 
ChanceUor of the Exchequer, 1885 and 1892. Bom 1827 ; died 1904.] 



164 REMINISCENCES 

Scott, a special ally of Hope, wrote the articles on 
Church questions. Hemming was supposed to take 
finance. But when he and I, by strange and pleasant 
chance, met after many years in the Park at Toronto 
and talked over our old literary comradeship, he told 
me that this impression was a mistake. Lord Robert 
Cecil had incurred his father's displeasure, by his mar- 
riage with a daughter of Baron Alderson,^ an extremely 
clever woman who was supposed privately to help us 
with her pen. Something of the Saturday Reviewer was 
afterwards discernible in Lord Salisbury's speeches, 
perhaps not to his political advantage ; for that which 
would be smart in an article may be too smart in a Min- 
ister's speech. He offended the Irish vote by a philo- 
sophic remark on the inequalities of political capacity 
and the imprudence of giving democratic institutions 
to the Hottentots. ''Master of flouts and gibes and 
sneers " he was called by Disraeli. As the guest of 
Hope at Bedgebury, where we had very pleasant meet- 
ings, I was thrown much into Lord Salisbury's company, 
and I always felt and expressed more confidence in his 
judgment and rectitude than in his strength. Bismarck 
in his slashing way said of him that he was a reed ^ 
painted to look like iron. This was exaggeration. 
But Lord Salisbury used to speak both in public and 
private of Disraeli's character and designs in terms 

[' Georgina Caroline, eldest daughter of the Honourable Sir 
Edward Hall Alderson, Baron of the Exchequer.] 
[2 Query. — Lath?] 



JOURNALISM 165 

which it might have been thought would make their 
union impossible. His ultimate submission to Disraeli 
was ascribed to the pressure of his aspiring wife. His 
consent to the attack on the independence of the 
Transvaal Republic, being the man of honour that he 
was and clearly committed on the question, may prob- 
ably be ascribed to the dominant influence of Chamber- 
lain. 

The staff, or at least the circle of contributors, was 
afterwards so much enlarged that at the Saturday 
Review dinners at Richmond or Greenwich it seemed as 
if the whole literary tribe of London were gathered 
together. 

Douglas Cook's policy, to which Beresford-Hope's 
purse enabled him to give effect, was to buy the very 
best article, whatever might be the necessary price. 
The field was open ; The Spectator having declined after 
the death of Rintoul ^ ; and the Saturday paid, as I 
understood, from the first. 

Had I written in Latin the epitaph of George Vena- 
bles, it would have been Magnus Vir, Si Emersisset. It 
was always a mystery to me how a man with his ability, 
his force of character, and his political information, 
could have been content to remain through life an 
anonymous journalist. I never heard him make a 
speech; but he was said as Parliamentary Counsel to 
have spoken extremely well. His style as a writer was 

[* Robert Stephen Rintoul, founder of The Spectator. 1787- 
1858.] 



166 REMINISCENCES 

peculiar and not popular. His sentences followed each 
other without connecting particles, like a succession of 
pellets from a popgun. But his articles were full of 
weighty good sense. Nor was he without sardonic wit. 
When Thesiger/ a popular man, but a bad lawyer, was 
made Chancellor, Venables said, ''Sir Frederick The- 
siger is raised to the Chancellorship amidst universal 
sympathy, which we cannot help extending to the 
suitors." When Palmerston, a Tory at heart, made a 
clap-trap speech, in favour I think of an extension of 
the franchise, and Pakington,^ a professed Conserva- 
tive, imitated and tried to cap him, Venables said that 
if Pakington's speech was insincere that only increased 
the servility of the imitation. 

If any one into whose hands the Saturday may since 
have fallen fancies that its success was due to political 
pepper, he is mistaken. Its tone during its palmy days 
was epicurean, and this was the source of its popularity 
in the circles by which it was chiefly supported. It 
was said of us that whereas with the generation of the 
Reform Bill, everything had been new, everything had 
been true, and everything had been of the highest im- 
portance, with us nothing was new, nothing was true, 
and nothing was of any importance. 

One day Cook asked me whether I had written a 
review of a book which he had put into my hands. I 

[1 Frederick Thesiger, first Baron Chelmsford ; Lord Chancellor 
1858-1859, and 1866-1868. Born 1794 ; died 1878.] 

pjohn Somerset Pakington, first Baron Hampton. (His real 
name was Russell.) 1799-1880.] 



JOURNALISM 167 

replied that I had read the book, but that it was not 
worth reviewing. ''Ah!" he said, ''you are not Uke 
the others. If I give them a bad book, they cut it up ; 
you tell me that it is not worth reviewing." I somehow 
got a false reputation for sharpness as a reviewer. A 
work like Froude's "Henry VIII," ^ not only artfully 
palliating the detestable crimes of a despot, but art- 
fully blackening the memories of his victims such as 
More, Fisher, and Pole, surely calls for reprobation.^ I 
have always thought that Macaulay was inhuman in 
insisting on the republication of his review of poor Satan 
Montgomery's poems.^ It is a pity he did not live to 
read Fitzjames Stephen's examination of his Life of 
Warren Hastings.^ It might have taught him mercy. 
Froude was undoubtedly a man of genius. He was a 
most brilliant and fascinating writer, and his History 
becomes far more historical when death has rid him of 
Henry VIII. But neither accuracy nor justice ever 
was his strong point. He was very impossible. He 
had set out under the influence of Newman ; he ended, 
after an interval of scepticism, under that of Carlyle. 



['James Anthony Froude's "History of England from the Fall 
of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth."] 

[2 Probably the reviews of the first two volumes of Froude's His- 
tory of England which appeared in the Saturday Review of April, 
the 26th and May the 3d, 1856, were from Mr. Goldwin Smith's 
pen.] 

[3 Robert Montgomery. 1807-1855.] 

j4 <« rpj^e Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah 
Impey." By Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, K. C.S.I. . . . Two 
volumes. London : Macmillan. 1885.] 



168 REMINISCENCES 

Neither of his prophets was Hkely to put him in the way 
of plain truth. 

My most important or least unimportant work as a 
journalist, however, was a series of letters in the Daily 
News, afterwards reprinted under the title of ''The 
Empire." ^ It commenced with a letter advocating the 
cession of the Ionian Islands, which were in a chronic 
state of discontent, to Greece ; a measure favoured by 
my political friends and presently adopted without 
any of the terrible effects predicted by the worshippers 
of Empire. The whole series was anti-Imperialist, 
advocating the concession of independence to adult 
Colonies, so that England might become indeed the 
mother of free nations. In the debate on the question 
of the Ionian Islands, Disraeli attacked me in the House 
of Commons. The publication of his letter to Lord 
Malmesbury,^ then Foreign Secretary, has shown that 
he himself regarded ''these wretched Colonies" as 
"a mill-stone round our necks," and held that they 
would "all be independent in a few years." (Malmes- 
bury's Memoirs, i. 344.) Nor was this a transient ebul- 
lition. His friend Sir William Gregory tells us ' that he 

P"The Empire. A Series of Letters published in The Daily 
News, 1862, 1863." By Goldwin Smith. Oxford and London: 
John Henry and James Parker. 1863.] 

P James Howard Harris, third Earl of Malmesbury. 1807-1889.] 
['"... as for the colonies, his expressions were always those of 
contempt and a contented impression that we should sooner or later 
be rid of them." — "An Autobiography. By Sir William Gregory, 
K.C.M.G., formerly Member of ParUament and sometime Governor 
of Ceylon. Edited by Lady Gregory." London. Mmray. 1894. 
Page 105.] 



JOURNALISM 169 

held the same language in private to the end of his life. 
To show how little I shared Disraeli's contempt for the 
Colonies, it was in consequence of a suggestion made by 
me to a Colonial Secretary that they were first men- 
tioned in the Queen's Speech. 

The opinions held by me on the Colonial Question 
were at that time prevalent; some of our statesmen 
avowed them, more were inclined to them. They were 
undoubtedly shared by my friend Sir Frederic Rogers,^ 
the permanent head of the Colonial Office. They were 
certainly not deemed treason by my friend Godley,^ 
the founder of Canterbury, New Zealand, with whom 
I had a good deal of intercourse on colonial subjects. 
He was at all events strongly in favour of Colonial 
self-government, and said that he would rather be 
ruled by a Nero on the spot than by a Board in London. 
There is now a tidal wave of the opposite sentiment; 
but I have more than once in the course of a long life 
stood on the dry beach where a tidal wave had been. I 
remain unshaken in my convictions. Nor was the 
movement in which, through those letters, I took part, 
without important effect at the time. A larger meas- 
ure of self-government was given to the Colonies; the 
British troops were withdrawn from them ; and an end 
was put to petty wars with Maoris and Kaffirs which 
the presence of the troops, by encouraging the aggres- 

P Frederic Rogers, Baron Blaehford, Permanent Under-Secretary 
of State for the Colonies from 1860 to 1871. 1811-1889.] 

[2 John Robert Godley, Under-Seeretary-at-War. 1814-1861.] 



170 REMINISCENCES 

siveness of the Colonists, had fomented and which had 
cost Great Britain many millions. 

Palmerston, seconded by Layard/ proclaimed the 
regeneration, political and financial, of the Turkish 
Empire; encouraged British investment in its funds; 
identified British diplomacy with its preservation ; and 
drew us into a war with Russia in its defence. In the 
letters I argued on the opposite side, and on this ques- 
tion at least few will say that my pen was enlisted on 
the side of wrong. 

The publication of the letters brought me into con- 
nection with Walker,^ the editor of the Daily News, one 
of the most thoroughly upright and conscientious mem- 
bers of the Press I ever knew. What is behind the 
Press is now a very grave, not to say terrible, question. 
If such men as Walker were behind it, we should be safe 
enough. 

The Letters on the Empire, with general connections, 
gave me for the time something of a political position. I 
was offered the nomination for Chelsea and Kensington, 
a constituency in which the Liberals had a safe major- 
ity. But I knew the difference between the pen and 
the tongue. I never was a speaker, nor had I strength 
for Parliamentary life. Disraeli, however, seemed to 
take it into his head that I was likely to be trouble- 

[1 Sir Austen Henry Layard, excavator of Nineveh ; politician. 
1817-1894.] 

P Thomas Walker ; editor of the Daily News from 1858 to 1869 ; 
then editor of the London Gazette till 1889. Born at Oxford in 1822 ; 
bred a carpenter ; died in 1898.] 



JOURNALISM 171 

some, for again he attacked me personally in the House 
of Conmions. This time it was for writing against en- 
tails of land, a subject for which I had prepared my- 
self under the guidance of an eminent land agent. He 
afterwards pursued me across the Atlantic and tried to 
brand me, under a perfectly transparent pseudonym, if 
''Oxford Professor " could be called a pseudonym at all, 
as a ''social sycophant."^ There is surely nothing 
more dastardly than this mode of stabbing a reputation. 

[1 "The Oxford Professor, who was the guest of the American 
Colonel, was quite a young man, of advanced opinions on all subjects, 
religious, social and political. He was clever, extremely well-in- 
formed, so far as books can make a man knowing, but unable to 
profit even by that limited experience of life from a restless vanity 
and overflowing conceit, which prevented him from ever observing 
or thinking of anything but himself. He was gifted with a great 
command of words, which took the form of endless exposition, va- 
ried by sarcasm and passages of ornate jargon. He was the last 
person one would have expected to recognise in an Oxford professor ; 
but we live in an age of transition. 

"A Parisian man of science, who had passed his life in alternately 
fighting at barricades and discovering planets, had given Colonel 
Campian, who had lived much in the French capital, a letter of 
introduction to the Professor, whose invectives against the principles 
of English society were hailed by foreigners as representative of the 
sentiments of venerable Oxford. The Professor, who was not 
satisfied with his home career, and, like many men of his order of 
mind, had dreams of wild vanity which the New World, they think, 
can alone realise, was very glad to make the Colonel's acquaintance, 
which might facilitate his future movements. So he had lionised 
the distinguished visitors during the last few days over the Univer- 
sity ; and had availed himself of plenteous opportunities for exhib- 
iting to them his celebrated powers of exposition, his talent for sar- 
casm, which he deemed peerless, and several highly finished pictur- 
esque passages, which were introduced with extemporary art. 

"The Professor was much surprised when he saw Lothair enter 
the saloon at the hotel. He was the last person in Oxford whom he 
expected to encounter. Like sedentary men of extreme opinions, 



172 REMINISCENCES 

Although I declined to run for Parliament myself, I 
went with some of my friends to their elections and en- 
joyed the fun, of which something still lingered, though 
reform had quenched the glories of Eatanswill. The 
Liberal Whip one day sent for me and told me that Mr. 
Mundella,^ a Nottingham merchant, had been asked to 
run for Sheffield, the seat of the most militant trade- 
unionism, that Mundella was a novice in politics, but 
would be inclined to accept, if I would go with him and 
post him. The Wliigs frowned on the enterprise, say- 
ing that Roebuck^ (''Tear 'em" was his nickname), 
the other candidate, through his influence with the 
unions, was sure of success and would come back with 
his restive Radicalism a greater thorn in the side of 
the Government than ever. Besides, there was danger 
of a riot. I suggested a reference to Gladstone. The 
answer was, Fight. To Sheffield we went. Mundella 
was approached by the most extreme and formidable 
of the unions. He took by my advice a boldly in- 
dependent line, which was successful, the great Union 
no doubt having its enemies, and was returned by a 
large majority. At Abingdon one hall was stormed, 

he was a social parasite, and instead of indulging in his usual invec- 
tives against peers and princes, finding himself unexpectedly about 
to dine with one of that class, he was content to dazzle and amuse 
him." Disraeli, "Lothair," Chapter xxiv.] 

[1 Anthony John Mundella, M.P. from 1868 till his death in 1897 ; 
much interested in Factory Acts and Education Acts, etc. Born 
in 1825.] 

PJohn Arthur Roebuck, M.P. 1832-1837; 1841-1847; 1849- 
1868 ; 1874^1879. Born 1801 ; died 1879.] 



JOURNALISM 173 

and at Reading we had a row. But these were nothing 
to the election days of old. At Woodstock we fought 
against the interest of Blenheim, represented by Lord 
Randolph Churchill ^ of curious fame. But Blenheim 
had given its Christmas doles and prevailed. 

[» Third son of the sixth Duke of Marlborough. 1849-1894.] 



CHAPTER XII 

CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 

Peel — Disraeli — " Lothair" — Bentinck — The Duke of Newcastle 

— Cardwell — " Welbeck " — Gladstone — The Peelites — 
Sidney Herbert — Canning — Dalhousie — Sir James Graham 

— Lord Aberdeen — Russell — Granville — Godley — Joseph 
Chamberlain — Earl Grey. 

Partly by my connection with Journalism; partly 
by my Eton and social connections, I was led to in- 
timacy with some public men, with the Peelite circle at 
first, and afterwards with Bright, Cobden, and the Man- 
chester School. Peel ^ himself was always the object 
of my political allegiance. I saw in him a statesman, in 
his later days at all events, above party, who sought 
and studied with singleness of heart the good of the 
whole nation, and though I had less respect for some 
venerable institutions than he had, I recognized his 
wisdom in preferring administrative reform, which he 
steadfastly pursued, to organic change. Beyond doubt 
he had the confidence not only of the majority, but of 
the most intelligent and respectable part of the nation. 
His fall before an unprincipled coalition of Protection- 
ist Tories, office-seeking Whigs, English Radicals, and 

[1 Sir Robert Peel, second Baronet; Prime Minister 1834-1835; 
1841-1846. Born in 1788 ; died 1850.] 

174 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 175 

Irish enemies of the Union had increased my feeling in 
his favour. 

Of Peel I saw nothing. When I went to London he 
had fallen from ofhce ; not from power ; he was still at 
the head of the House of Commons and of the country. 
Greville says truly that he would have been elected 
Prime Minister by an overwhelming majority.^ Soon 
afterwards he was killed by a fall from his horse. He 
was a good shot, but a bad horseman, having a loose 
seat. Care was supposed to be taken in buying horses 
for him on that account. But the horse which killed 
him had been offered for sale to my father and other fox- 
hunters in our neighbourhood, and had been rejected 
for its trick of bucking and kicking. Our neighbour at 
Mortimer, Sir Paul Hunter,^ met Peel riding in the Park, 
recognized his horse, actually turned to warn him; but 
fearing to intrude, abstained. The horse probably 
played its usual trick ; threw Peel over its head ; and 
he, falling with the reins in his hand, pulled down the 
horse upon him. The horse with his knee broke the 
rider's rib, drove it into his lungs, and thus, like the 
mole whose mole-hill killed William III, played a part 
in history. 

It was currently reported, and the belief has found 
a place in Froude's Biography ^ of Disraeli, that Peel 

[1 "Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria." By Charles C. F. 
Greville. London : Longmans. 1885. Vol. Ill, pages 100, 101.] 

P Sir Claudius Stephen Paul Hunter, second Baronet, J.P., 
D.L. 1825-1890.] 

P In "The Prime Ministers of Queen Victoria " Series, edited by 
Stuart J. Reid.] 



176 REMINISCENCES 

wanted to send Disraeli a challenge for something said 
by him in the Corn Law debates. Peel did want to send 
a challenge, and for something said in the Corn Law 
debates; but it was not to Disraeli; it was to Lord 
George Bentinck/ The Duke of Newcastle, who was 
asked by Peel to carry the challenge, told me the story. 
We were talking about our contemporaries at Eton and 
Oxford. This led to mention of Sidney Herbert and 
a reference to a false charge against Peel of having 
abused Sidney Herbert's confidence in him. The 
Duke said that no one would be less likely to be guilty 
of such a thing than Peel, who was so sensitive about his 
relation to his friends that, for aspersing it, he had 
wanted to send a challenge to Lord George Bentinck. 
The Duke proceeded to say that after the debate, when 
the House was up. Peel had asked him to wait while he 
wrote the customary letter to the Queen, then took his 
arm and walked with him toward his own house in 
Hyde Park Gardens, saying by the way that Bentinck's 
language had been an aspersion on his honour and the 
Duke must carry a challenge. The Duke remonstrated. 
Peel insisted. They walked to and fro till workmen 
began to pass on their way to work. Peel was then per- 
suaded to go to bed, the Duke promising speedily to 
return. Returning, the Duke found Peel still resolved 
to send the challenge, but at length consideration for 
what the Duke pleaded would be the feelings of the 

[1 William George Frederic Cavendish-Bentinck, fifth child of the 
fourth Duke of Portland, a statesman and a sportsman. 1802-1848.1 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 177 

Queen in case of serious consequences prevailed. Hav- 
ing heard the story I naturally asked how it was that 
Peel felt so much a blow of Lord George Bentinck's 
bludgeon when he showed such indifference of Disraeli's 
poniard, of which he once only stooped to take cursory 
notice. The Duke's answer was that, calling at Peel's 
house on his way to the House of Commons, he had 
been shown by Peel, who took it from his bag, a letter 
from Disraeli asking place. That he had ever asked 
Peel for place Disraeli in the House of Commons de- 
nied. The letter which proves that he lied is now pub- 
lished by Mr. Charles Parker ^ and most abject it is. 
The Duke gave me the fact with full liberty to use it. 
I took a note of it from his lips. But I was also cog- 
nizant of it in another way. Peel's correspondence 
having been opened to me by his literary executors for 
the purpose of a projected Life. My inspection of the 
correspondence was confidential, and I felt bound not 
to embarrass the literary executors, especially when Peel 
had himself shown so much delicacy on the subject. It 
is not unlikely that the letter was before him in Peel's 
bag when Disraeli's falsehood was told. Thus the fact 
remained unknown until, after a long delay caused by 
various accidents. Peel's correspondence saw the light. 
To me, however, it was well known what the man was 
who was making his gambling-table of my country.. I 
do not feel sure that I did right in keeping the secret. 

[» "Sir Robert Peel." By Charles Stuart Parker. In three 
volumes. London : Murray. 1891 and 1899. Volume II, page 486.] 



178 REMINISCENCES 

Divulged it might have averted mischief, but Peel 
had kept it. 

There was one slip in the Duke's narrative. He said 
that if he would not take the challenge Peel threatened 
to apply to Lord Hardinge/ Hardinge was then in 
India. But I found that he had acted for Peel in an 
affair with a Colonel Mitchell,^ and to this no doubt Peel 
referred. There was always fire under Peel's snow, and 
he was of the old school of honour. 

Disraeli had in reality no great difficulties to over- 
come. He was a Jew by descent, but a baptized 
Christian. He was married to a rich wife. He started 
in public life as an adventurer, angling for a seat in 
Parliament by baits thrown out to both parties, and 
going through a series of transformations in the course 
of which he had a slanging match with O'Connell, who 
called him the ' ' lineal representative of the impenitent 
thief." In his ''Letters of Runnymede " he fawns 
fulsomely on Peel and scurrilously abuses the Whigs. 

One part of his Parliamentary strategy was the con- 
coction of little pointed sayings about the personal 
peculiarities of his opponents; as when he said of 
Horsman ^ that he was a ''superior person," and al- 
luded to Hope's * "Batavian grace." Lord Salisbury * 

[1 Charles Stewart, second Viscount Hardinge, private Secretary 
to his father, Sir Henry Hardinge, Governor-General of India, 
1844-1847; M.P. ; Under-Secretary for War ; etc. 1822-1894.] 

P Query. — John Mitchell, author of "The Life of Wallenstein," 
!*The Fall of Napoleon," etc. 1785-1859.] 

P Edward Horsman, Whig politician. 1807-1876.] 

[* Alexander James Beresford-Hope.] [^ The third Marquess.] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 179 

was a ''master of gibes, flouts, and jeers." People were 
weakly afraid of drawing these shafts of ridicule upon 
themselves. When, however, Disraeli tried to kill 
Gladstone by saying that he was a ''sophistical rheto- 
rician intoxicated with the exuberance of his own ver- 
bosity," the ridicule turned on himself. 

Disraeli's strong point as a speaker was personal 
attack, apart from which he was apt to be heavy. I 
heard him at the time of the Mutiny make a highly 
laboured speech on the Indian question which evidently 
wearied and partly cleared the House. Even as a 
novelist he indulges in personal attack, though when 
he comes to deal with Lord Hertford his own syco- 
phancy betrays itself and he betrays a strong contrast 
to the free hand of Thackeray. His ' ' Letters of Runny- 
mede " are an extravagant imitation of Junius. He 
says to Russell, who had given him no provocation, 

" A miniature Mokanna, you are now exhaling upon the consti- 
tution of your country, which you once eulogized, and its great 
fortunes, of which you once were proud, all that long-hoarded venom 
and all those distempered humours that have for years accumulated 
in your petty heart, and tainted the current of your mortified life." ' 

He avowed that he was a flatterer, having, as he said, 
found the practice useful. To the Queen he "laid it on 
with a trowel " and with most satisfactory effect. He 
once opened a sitting of the Privy Council with an ex- 
travagant compliment to her as an authoress. He was 
overheard pandering to her hatred of Garibaldi, and 

[1 Pages 59, 60.] 



180 REMINISCENCES 

when she said that she had been told the same thing 
before, said, ''Then it must be true, for no one would 
tell your Majesty anything, but the truth." 

Peel could not give Disraeli place, but his reply to 
him was perfectly courteous, and it seems that he en- 
couraged him at his rather unfortunate debut in the 
House of Commons by a kindly cheer. Disraeli pre- 
sently commenced a series of laboured attacks on Peel. 
His object at this time was blackmailing, for he pro- 
tested against being ruled out of the party, and after- 
wards asked Graham, Peel's colleague, for patronage. 
The split between Peel and the Protectionists opened a 
grander game. That he had lampooned the Corn Law 
squires in ''Popanilla" ^ did not prevent his flinging 
himself into their arms and glutting at once his revenge 
and his ambition by a series of most intensely venomous 
attacks on the great convert to free trade. He was 
fortunate in the split between Peel and his Protection- 
ists. He was fortunate in finding such a tool as Ben- 
tinck, with his sporting reputation, his stolidity and 
violence, wherewith to work upon the angry squires. 
He was fortunate in finding a patron like Lord Derby, 
all-powerful with the Tory and Protectionist party, and 
at the same time not unjustly nicknamed "The Jockey," 
with a good deal of the turfite in his character, and, 
though supposed to be a paragon of high principle, not 
too scrupulous to take a leap in the dark with the high- 

[1 "The Voyage of Captain Popanilla." By the Author of 
"Vivian Grey." London. 1828.] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 181 

est interests of the nation, if thereby he could dish the 
Whigs, of whom, at the time of the Reform Bill, he had 
been about the most violent. He was doubly fortunate 
in the sudden death of Bentinck, who was ferociously 
sincere and would never have consented to the second 
part of his friend's game, jettison of Protection. He 
was fortunate, again, in having on the throne, no longer 
Prince Albert, who abhorred him, but Prince Albert's 
widow, highly receptive of the flattery which, to use 
what was reported as his own expression, he laid on 
with a trowel. His cleverness nobody denies. It was 
shown by leading the gentlemen of England out of the 
path of honour. But his whole course was one of 
mancEuvring with a selfish aim. Long as was his 
career, not one good measure of importance bears his 
name. Nor in his speeches is there anything high or 
noble, anything that can be quoted for its sentiment, 
anything that shows genius unless it be the genius of 
the literary stabber. His elaborate oration on India 
at the time of the Mutiny, which I heard, was very 
heavy, and thinned the House. His vindictiveness 
was truly oriental. In his Life of Lord George Bentinck 
he still gloats over the recollection of Peel rising "con- 
fused and suffering " from his attacks, as he fancied, 
though it was really pain at the rupture of the tie with 
party and friends about which Peel's feeling was in- 
tense. The passage * is interesting read in comparison 

[1 Chapter xv. — In the tenth edition of Disraeli's " Life," I find 
the passage on page 195.] 



182 REMINISCENCES 

with Peel's scrupulous delicacy in respecting the con- 
fidential letter suing for place. 

It may have been partly by suspicion of my posses- 
sion of an unpleasant secret that Disraeli was moved to 
follow me across the Atlantic and try, as he did in 
"Lothair," ^ to brand me as "a, social sycophant." 
His knowledge of my social character was not great, 
for I had only once met him in society. His allusion to 
the '^ Oxford Professor" who was going to the United 
States was as transparent as if he had used my name. 
Had I been in England, where my character was 
known, I should have let the attack pass; but I 
was in a strange country where, made by a man of 
note, the attack was likely to tell. I therefore gave 
Disraeli the lie ^ and neither he nor any of his organs 
ever ventured to repeat the calumny. Surely nothing 
can be more dastardly than an attack on character 
under cover of a pseudonym. However false and ma- 
licious the slander may be, the person attacked can- 
not repel it without seeming to recognize its aptitude. 

In ''Popanilla" will be found clear proof that Dis- 
raeli was not a Protectionist, but a satirist of Pro- 

[1 See note on page 171, chap, xi.] 

[' In the following letter : — 

"In your ' Lothair ' you introduce an Oxford Professor who is 
about to emigrate to America, and you describe him as a social parasite. 
You well know that if you had ventured openly to accuse me of any 
social baseness you would have had to answer for your words ; 
but when sheltering yourself under the literary forms of a work 
of fiction, you seek to traduce with impunity the social character 
of a political opponent, your expressions can touch no man's honour 
— they are the stingless insults of a coward."] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 183 

tection. He took to Protection for the purpose of his 
conspiracy against Peel with the intention of throwing 
it over, as he did, when his object had been gained. 
This programme he could not have carried out if Lord 
George Bentinck had lived, insead of being removed, 
as he was, just at the right moment, by a sudden death. 
Bentinck was an honest fanatic, and would never have 
allowed Disraeli to turn him round for the purpose of 
the game. In Bentinck, who had the character and 
confidence of the land-owning gentry, which Disraeli 
lacked, was found the exact tool required by Disraeli. 
The charge against Peel of having "murdered" Can- 
ning, which Disraeli in his Life of Bentinck has carefully 
credited to his ''friend," was Disraeli's own invention 
and infused by him into his dupe. Bentinck had been 
Canning's private Secretary. It was not likely that he 
would have followed Peel all those years if he had be- 
lieved him to be the betrayer of Canning, and had he 
been himself devoted to Canning, as Disraeli pretends, 
though Greville scouts the idea.^ 

At the time when Peel declared for free trade dire 
distress prevailed. Tens of thousands of working-men 
were out of employment. Grass was being boiled for 
food. Wedding-rings were being pawned by the hun- 
dred. In Ireland a terrible famine impended. Yet 
this Semite, who had shown that he saw and ridiculed 
the fallacy of Protection, as he continued, when Pro- 
tectionism had served his turn, to do, could for his own 

[1 "Memoirs," second part, Volume II, pages 398 et seq.] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 185 

revenge and advancement coolly play the Protection- 
ist game. 

The Conservatives who had stuck to Peel through 
the Corn Law conflict, and though few in number were 
the brains of the party, included Graham,^ Lord 
Aberdeen,^ Gladstone, the Duke of Newcastle,^ Dal- 
housie,'' Cardwell,^ Sidney Herbert, and Canning. Hav- 
ing hovered for a time between the two camps, they ul- 
timately coalesced, and finally fused, with the Liberals. 
The six younger members of the group had been 
not only taken into office, but personally trained by 
Peel, who was master of all departments and was 
unique in devices to provide the country with a succes- 
sion of statesmen. 

My chief political friends of the group were the Duke 
of Newcastle and Edward Cardwell. The Duke had 
been, like me, though somewhat before me, in Cole- 
ridge's house at Eton, which I have said was a bond. 

The Duke of Newcastle was not a great statesman, 
perhaps he was not even a very great administrator, 
for though he was a good man of business and devoted 
to work, he wore himself out with details which he 

P Sir James Robert George Graham. 1792-1861.] 

p George Hamilton Gordon, fourth Earl of Aberdeen, Secretary 
for War and the Colonies under Peel. 1784^1860.] 

[3 The fifth Duke.] 

[^ James Andrew Brown Ramsay, tenth Earl and first Marquess 
of Dalhousie, President of the Board of Trade ; afterwards Governor- 
General of India. 1812-1860.] 

p Edward, Viscount Cardwell ; held many high political posts 
under Peel and Aberdeen, PaLmerston, Russell, and Gladstone. 
1813-1886.] 



186 REMINISCENCES 

ought to have left to subordinates ; and I fancy he had 
not the gift of choosing his subordinates very well. 
The breakdown in the Crimea, however, was not his 
fault, but the fault of a long-disused and rusty machine 
which he was just getting into order when the Govern- 
ment fell. Though a man of strong feelings and affec- 
tions, he lacked imagination, and perhaps owed partly 
to that defect the unhappiness which befell him in his 
married life. But he was a thoroughly upright, high- 
minded, and patriotic gentleman, who kept his soul 
above his rank, and devoted himself to the service of 
the State; while the fortitude with which he bore 
accumulated misfortune and torturing disease would 
have touched any heart, as it did mine. He showed, as 
I have said, remarkable tact and temper in presiding 
over the Education Connmission, which was made up of 
men chosen as representatives of different opinions on 
a burning question. In that respect, at all events, he 
would not have been a bad head of a government. His 
colleagues would also have felt that they could thor- 
oughly trust his honour. It was in an unlucky hour, and 
at the bidding of an ill-starred ambition, that he for- 
sook the Colonial Office for the Ministry of War. As a 
Colonial Minister he was successful in his own way, 
which was that of a decided Imperialist, though he was 
too good-natured ever to quarrel with a friend who 
wrote in support of the opposite view. I turned up 
the other day one of his notes bidding me come to 
dinner and he would have one or two Colonists to 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 187 

"roast" me. His greatest mistake, perhaps, was his 
alliance with Sadleir ^ and that gang. But into this he 
was led by a sincere desire of a liberal government for 
Ireland. His liberal tendencies did not fail to bring 
upon him the wrath of his father, who had greatly 
encumbered the estate by reckless purchases of terri- 
torial influence for the purpose of upholding ultra- 
Toryism, and had prepared for himself a place among 
the most hapless victims of the irony of fate by opening 
the door of the House of Commons to Mr. Gladstone. 

Cardwell, whose acquaintance I made at first through 
the Duke, always seemed to me the model of a public 
servant. He was the most typical pupil, as well as 
one of the warmest adherents of Peel, who, as I have 
said, did his best to train statesmen for the country, 
and exacted, as the title to promotion, the conscien- 
tious industry and thorough devotion to the public 
service of which he was himself a grand example. 
Cardwell, like Peel, was dry, and, like Peel, somewhat 
stiff and formal ; there was nothing about him brilliant 
or impressive to anyone who was not impressed by duty. 
He was not and never could have been a party leader ; 
he had not the fire, the magnetism, the eloquence, or 
the skill as a tactician. It did not seem to me that he 
ever scanned the political field for strategical purposes 
as party leaders do. He was content to do the business 
and solve the question of the hour. The question of 

P John Sadleir, the i' Irish politician and swindler." 1814- 
1856.1 



188 REMINISCENCES 

the hour he solved by an honest sort of opportunism, 
rather than on any very broad principle, or with refer- 
ence to any far-reaching policy. Not only was he 
unqualified to be a party leader, but he was an indiffer- 
ent partisan; his mind was too fair, and his judgment 
was too cool. On the other hand, he was a true com- 
rade, a fast friend, and not a bad hater of the enemies of 
his friends. I believe that this is the right way of stat- 
ing the case, and that Cardwell was free from rancour. 
I know that some whose opinion is of weight thought 
him unjust to opponents. It is difficult for a gladiator 
in such an arena as party politics to be perfectly just; 
but I must say that I never heard Cardwell speak bit- 
terly of mere difference of opinion, or of anything but 
what he sincerely believed to be dishonest. He was 
cautious, perhaps reticent, to a fault. Without being 
eloquent, he was a good and convincing speaker in 
Peel's manner, and particularly clear in exposition; 
yet he never spoke if he could help it, and more than 
once rehearsed to me, in substance, speeches which he 
was going to make, but when the time came did not 
make. It was as an administrator and practical legis- 
lator that he was really great. While others talked 
and manoeuvred for power, he did an immense amount 
of work, and of the best quality, for the nation. His 
great achievements and monuments are the Merchant 
Shipping Act of 1854,^ which is still the code of our 
Mercantile Marine, and the transformation of the army 
[117 and 18 Vict. Cap. cxx.] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 189 

from an unprofessional and unscientific to a profes- 
sional and scientific force, which he accomplished with 
Lord Wolseley's aid. Peel made it a point of honour 
so carefully to prepare his Bills that they should pass 
with little amendment, and in this, as in other respects, 
Cardwell was a faithful pupil. The Merchant Shipping 
Bill with its five hundred and forty-eight sections passed 
through Committee at a single sitting — curious con- 
trast to a Franchise Act, the work of the opposite school, 
which, when it finally became law, retained of the 
original Bill scarcely anything but the preamble.^ 
The transformation of the army in face of all the 
prejudices and opposition of the men of the old school 
was probably as heavy a piece of work as ever fell to the 
lot of a British legislator. It broke Cardwell down, and 
brought on the malady which closed his working days. 
The strongest testimony is borne, by those who are best 
qualified to judge, to the temper and patience as well as 
to the ability and the power of mastering details dis- 
played in the conduct of the business. Testimony 
equally strong is borne to the display of the same 
qualities in other departments, notably in the Board of 
Trade. As Colonial Secretary Cardwell had to deal, 
amidst a tornado of public excitement, with the ques- 
tion of the disturbances in Jamaica and of Governor 
Eyre.^ The case of Jamaica he was generally allowed 
to have settled well, though in the case of Governor 

[^ No doubt a reference to Disraeli's Reform Bill, which became 
law in August, 1867.] [2 See Chapter XX.] 



190 REMINISCENCES 

Eyre it was impossible to unite the suffrages of those 
who regarded the Governor as a hero with the suffrages 
of those who regarded him not only as the hateful in- 
strument of a cruel panic, but as the dastardly murderer 
of his personal enemy, Gordon. To Cardwell is due, if 
not the initiative, the execution, of a great change in 
Colonial policy; for he it was who, by practically in- 
sisting that the Colonies should pay for troops main- 
tained in them, inaugurated self-defence, which was a 
long step towards Colonial independence. Cardwell 
was no eye-server ; he did the work of his office thor- 
oughly and faithfully without any thought of self-dis- 
play or of the figure which he was to make before the 
House of Commons; and one could not help thinking 
how absurd was the party system which compelled the 
country to deprive itself of such a departmental ad- 
ministrator because the party to which he belonged 
had been defeated on some legislative question totally 
unconnected with the business of his department. 
Albeit, as has already been said, no party leader or 
organizer of political forces, Cardwell in council, though 
quiet, was strong, and was able even to control the 
course of errant and flaming bodies which afterwards 
set the political firmament on fire. Such at least was 
the impression which I formed when I was living in 
the Peelite circle. ^ Though everywhere but in his home 
Cardwell seemed rather cold, his wife could not live 
when he was gone. Her remaining days, in fact, were 
almost spent in lingering round his grave. 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 191 

With Newcastle and Cardwell I was very intimate, 
passing much time and meeting interesting people in 
the houses of both of them. Clumber, the Duke's 
abode, was in itself full of interest as a great historic 
house still full of historic treasures, gifts, some of them 
gifts of Royalty, to statesmen of old. Among these was 
a superb pair of Sevres vases, the gift of the King of 
France. They had been lent to an exhibition where one 
of them was swept in a roll of cotton off a packing table 
and smashed to pieces, but had been very skilfully put 
together again. The Duke was trying to redeem the 
estate encuml)ered by the extravagance of his predeces- 
sors, one of whom had indulged his pride by buying and 
tearing down a vast and sumptuous mansion in the 
neighbourhood that Clumber might have no rival. 
But saving must have been difficult when such a house- 
hold as I saw in the domestic Chapel at Clumber was 
to be maintained. These households must have eaten 
deeply into the revenues of the landed aristocracy of 
England. 

The present King,^ then Prince of Wales, was at 
Clumber. In his honour a banquet was given in the 
state dining-room, with the ancestral dessert service of 
gold plate, which did not seem to me very dazzling in its 
brilliancy. The Mayors of neighbouring towns were 
invited. Ice to cool wine had just come into fashion. 
One of the Mayors took it for an entree, got it on his 
plate, first tried to cut it, then carried a lump of it to his 
[' This refers, of course, to his late Majesty King Edward VII.] 



192 REMINISCENCES 

mouth with a spoon. A well-trained footman, seeing 
the situation, whipped away the ice, but the Mayor's 
confidence was shaken for the rest of the feast. 

A strange claim raised to the Portland inheritance 
reminded me of a visit I paid to Welbeck in company 
with Denison, afterwards Lord Ossington,^ when we 
were together staying at Clumber. Denison was the 
brother-in-law of the Duke of Portland.^ When we 
approached Wclbcck he said, ''I can't take you in; I 
can't go in myself, though I am the Duke's brother-in- 
law. He is hypochondriac, lives underground, goes 
underground to the railroad, and will let nobody see 
him. But we can look round the place." The first 
things I saw were some pines which had been trans- 
planted at their full growth with a screen of proportion- 
ate height to protect them from the wind. The next 
thing was a newly-built set of stables, coach-houses, and 
other offices on the very grandest scale, with carriages 
and horses to match, all to keep up the state of a gran- 
dee who never showed his face out of doors. It is 
surely most unlikely that a man so full of aristocratic 
pride, even if his sanity was impaired, should have 
chosen to masquerade as a London tradesman. We 
rode home by moonlight through a grove of spruces, 
feathering to the ground, which I thought the most 
solemn things in the way of trees I had ever seen. I 

p See page 149, Chapter X. He married Charlotte, seventh 
child of the fourth Duke of Portland. 1800-1873.] 

[2 William John Cavendish Scott Bentinck, the fifth Duke of 
Portland. Born, 1800 ; died in 1879.] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 193 

have since seen the rival of that grove, perhaps its su- 
perior, in the road through the forest from Vancouver 
to New Westminster. 

My memories of Gladstone, with whom I was also 
very intimate, I have given elsewhere/ I will not 
dwell again on his almost miraculous powers of work 
and speech, on his mastery of the art of framing great 
measures and carrying them through Parliament, on 
his triumphs as a financier, his general though less un- 
chequered merits as a statesman, his virtues, graces of 
character, and piety as a man. Nor need I touch again 
his weaker points; his liability to self-deception and 
casuistry, or the violent impulsiveness and combative- 
ness which hurried him at last into his Irish policy and 
made his great friend and admirer Lord Selborne de- 
scribe him in a letter to me as ''morally insane." Even 
in his intellect there was a strange mixture of weakness 
with strength. It is difficult to believe that the same 
man can have made the budget-speeches and written, 
as Gladstone in the full light of research and science 
wrote, about theology and Homer. His fancy, heated 
with the political fray, grew wild enough to compare 
the abolition of the exclusionist Parliament of Ireland 
to the massacre of St. Bartholomew. In the earlier 
part of his career, Gladstone I suspect was uncon- 
sciously controlled by the gentle influence of friends 
such as Cardwell and Newcastle, both of whom he lost. 

[» "My Memory of Gladstone." Toronto: Wm. Tyrrell; 
London : T. Fisher Unwin. 1904. Second edition, 1909.] 



194 REMINISCENCES 

Of Mr. Morley's ^ Life, the first two volumes are his- 
torical as well as admirably written; this can hardly 
be said of the last. It does credit to Peel's largeness 
of mind that he should have recognized and promoted 
high ability in a character so different from his own. 
Gladstone was loyal to Peel, but I do not think he ever 
loved him. Peel was an orthodox Protestant and 
Erastian, while Gladstone was a High Churchman, with 
Ritualists for his special friends, and hankering for re- 
union with Rome. After Peel's death, and when Pro- 
tection, as Disraeli said, was "dead and damned," Glad- 
stone would have taken the Conservative leadership, if 
Disraeli had not stood in the way. Disraeli professed 
his willingness to go, but did not go. 

That for which I could never cease to be grateful 
to Gladstone was his noble advocacy of the cause of the 
oppressed ; of the cause of the Italians by Austria and 
the Bourbons ; of the cause of the Christians oppressed 
by the Turks. Here at all events he was perfectly 
single-hearted and sincere. His sympathy was with 
everybody who was struggling to be free. This it was 
mainly, I believe, which led him in the American War of 
Secession to lean to the side of the South, and in a not 
very happy moment to proclaim that Jefferson Davis 
had made the South a nation. His course gave offence 
to strong Liberals. It was probably with a view to re- 
gaining their good opinion that he wrote one of them a 

[1 Now Viscount Morley of Blackburn. His Life of Gladstone 
was published by Messrs. MacmiUan in 1903.] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 195 

letter saying that if the South were separated from the 
North he would willingly see Canada annexed to the 
North. The avowal would not have satisfied those 
who desired the extinction of the slave-power ; while it 
might have embarrassed the writer if he had ever been 
called upon again as Minister to deal with Colonial 
questions. It was therefore destroyed. 

It may safely be said that it was not without serious 
misgiving that Gladstone went into the Crimean War. 
This probably was the real source of his secession from 
Palmerston's Government. It happened that when he 
was meditating that step I was with him one morning 
on business. Our business done, he went on to talk 
to me, or to himself, about the war in a way that be- 
trayed his intention. He said that Russia had offered 
us the terms originally demanded, and that if the Tro- 
jans would have given back Helen and her possessions, 
the Greeks would have raised the siege of Troy. It did 
not occur to him that the terms originally demanded 
might not satisfy after the expenditure of so much 
blood, or that when he had roused the pugnacity of the 
bull-dog it might be difficult to call him off. 

I can hardly attempt here fully to discuss his charac- 
ter, his public character, of course, I mean; for his 
private character, it need not be said, was admirable in 
every way. Labouchere said that he did not object to 
Gladstone's having aces up his sleeve, but he did object 
to his thinking that the Almighty had put them there. 
Jowett, who always withheld his confidence, said some- 



196 REMINISCENCES 

thing much more severe/ Simplicity certainly was not 
Gladstone's ordinary characteristic, nor could it be 
denied that he had a singular power of self-deception. 
It was the general impression that he would have taken 
the Conservative leadership if Disraeli had been out of 
the way. Having become the Liberal Leader, he threw 
himself into his part with all the impetuosity of his 
nature; persuading himself, perhaps, that he had long 
been a Liberal as he persuaded himself that he had long 
been inclined to Home Rule. It cannot be denied that 
his great Liberal moves, Disestablishment and Home 
Rule, coincided, though he might not be conscious of 
the coincidence, with the exigencies of his struggle for 
power. It has now been pretty well proved that his 
sudden dissolution of Parliament in 1874 without con- 
sulting his colleagues, which appeared so unaccount- 
able, and for a time wrecked his party, was his mode of 
escape from a personal dilemma in which he had in- 
volved himself by taking the salaried office of Chancel- 
lor of the Exchequer without going to his constituents 
for re-election. I was at Manchester when the disso- 
lution was announced, and I remember the astonish- 
ment and consternation which it caused. 
'■ Archbishop Tait told me that what he most feared in 
Gladstone was his levity. This may seem paradoxical ; 
yet I believe the Archbishop was right. That Glad- 

[1 See "The Life and Letters of Benjamin Jowett, M.A. Master 
of Balliol College, Oxford." By Evelyn Abbott, M.A., LL.D., and 
Lewis Campbell, M.A., LL.D. 2 vols. London: Murray. 1897. 
Volume I, page 406.] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 197 

stone's moral aspirations were high cannot be doubted. 
It is more doubtful whether his sense of responsibility- 
was very strong. At a dinner party at which I was 
present he came up late from the House. He was in the 
best of spirits and seemed to have nothing on his mind. 
At last he spoke of the motion of which he had just 
given notice in the House. The motion, as aftei-wards 
appeared, was one which would have brought the two 
Houses into collision with each other, and the notice 
of which had been given amidst extreme excitement. 
Wlien his love of power and his pugnacity were ex- 
cited, it is questionable whether he thought much of 
anything but victory. Perhaps there is a certain 
similarity between the cases of a political leader and a 
stormy element which would make extreme sensitive- 
ness a drawback. 

^'That Gladstone was a statesman of the very highest 
class I should find it difficult to believe. His moves 
always seemed to be impulses rather than parts of a 
settled plan. In his speeches on the extension of the 
franchise he failed to indicate the polity which he ex- 
pected to produce, and talked fallacious commonplace 
about uniting the whole people about their ancient 
throne. If he attacked the Lords, it was not that he 
had deliberately made up his mind in favour of a change, 
but that they came in his way at the moment ; and the 
constitutional doctrines which he put forward on that 
occasion were the angry fabrication of the hour. His 
proposal to give Ireland a Parliament of her own and at 



198 REMINISCENCES 

the same time a representation in the United ParHa- 
ment which would have enabled her to hold the balance 
of parties and practically to dominate there, can hardly 
be mentioned with calmness. His lifelong friend and 
supporter, Lord Selborne, said in a letter to me that 
Gladstone was ''morally insane." 

As a speaker he was in the highest degree effective, 
but the effect was produced by his conmiand of the 
subject, by the ascendancy of his character, by the im- 
pressiveness of his manner and an admirable voice, 
rather than by any grace or force of language. He 
was at his best, I think, in expounding a great measure 
and steering it through the House. He had, as was 
said before, marred the freshness of his style by over- 
much speaking in debating-clubs early in life. His 
prolixity, which Disraeli called his verbosity, was not 
felt by the hearers of his speeches, who were rather 
struck by his command of perfectly correct language, 
but it is greatly felt by his readers. 

''We are much better off than you are for a leader " 
said a Conservative Member of Parliament to a Liberal ; 
"ours is only an unprincipled scoundrel, yours is a 
dangerous lunatic." Tories were always saying, and 
half believed, that Gladstone was literally insane, and 
stories of his insanity were current. One was that 
he had gone to a toyshop and ordered its whole 
contents to be sent to his house. I asked Lady 
Russell whether there could be any foundation for 
this report. Her answer was, "I begin to think 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 199 

there must be, for I have heard it now every session 
for several years." 

\If Gladstone had not, like Brougham, the vanity of 
versatility, he had the propensity in large measure. It 
is true that his amazing powers of acquisition enabled 
him in a way to deal with many subjects. But his 
writings, enormously voluminous and various, are of 
little value. His controversy with Huxley about Gen- 
esis displayed his weakness. His argument, in effect, 
was that the Creator, though unscientific, had come re- 
markably near the truth about his own work and had all 
but hit upon the Nebular Hypothesis. In his Homeric 
and mjrthological lucubrations there are some things 
that are interesting, but there are others so fantastic 
that their publication shakes one's confidence in the 
general wisdom of the man. He once propounded to 
me a Homeric theory which he was going to give to the 
world founded on a philological discovery which he sup- 
posed himself to have made. I felt sure that the dis- 
covery was an illusion, and tried to convince him of this, 
without effect. Just then his brother-in-law. Lord 
Lyttleton,^ who was a first-rate classical scholar, came 
into the room. He evidently saw the matter as I did, 
yet he allowed himself to be half talked-over, and I sup- 
pose the fancy went into print. Before the publication, 
Gladstone gave a Homeric dinner to half a dozen schol- 
ars, including Milman and Cornewall Lewis. The osten- 
sible object of our meeting was to discuss Gladstone's 

p The fourth Baron.] 



200 REMINISCENCES 

theories. But of discussion there was very little. I 
suspect it was not easy for adverse truths to find access to 
the Great Man. It was very difficult to convince him by 
argument ; but I suspect he was more open to infusion. 

There was notliing fine or indicative of high intellect 
in the face except the fire of the eye. The whole frame 
bespoke nervous energ5^ Gladstone was a first-rate 
sleeper. At the time when he was being fiercely at- 
tacked for his secession from Palmerston's Government, 
I was told by a common friend whom I met one evening 
that he was in a state of extreme excitement. I hap- 
pened next morning to have business with him. He 
went out of the room to fetch a letter, leaving me with 
Mrs. Gladstone, to whom I made some remark on the 
trying nature of his situation. She answered that her 
husband came home from the most exciting of the 
scenes, laid his head upon the pillow, and slept like a 
child ; that if ever he had a bad night he was good for noth- 
ing the next day, but that this very rarely happened. 

Greville's Journal has revived the memory of the 
Peelites ; and an article appeared the other day, by the 
survivor and the most renowned of the group, in which, 
as a set of men taking their own course and remaining 
outside the regular parties, they were designated as a 
public nuisance.* One cannot help surmising that they 

[1 This refers to Gladstone's article on " The History of 1852-60, 
and Greville's latest Journals" in The English Historical Review 
for April, 1887, Volume II, page 258. Much of this chapter con- 
sists of passages taken from Mr. Goldwin Smith's article on "The 
Peelites" in Macmillan's Magazine of October, 1887.] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 201 

incurred this severe judgment in some measure by their 
similarity to a set of public men who at the present time 
are so misguided as to refuse at the call of a party 
leader to say what they think false and to do what they 
think wrong. It is the car of the Caucus Juggernaut 
rolling backwards over political history/ 

Though I never was in public life, I saw a good deal 
of some of the Peelites, and from them heard about the 
rest more than after the lapse of many years I can re- 
member. The acquaintance of the Duke of Newcastle 
I made through our common tutor at Eton, Edward 
Coleridge, who died the other day,^ and of whom, 
amidst the flood of biography, I wonder no memoir has 
appeared. Coleridge was the Arnold of Eton. He was 
a very Eton Arnold, it is true ; and as he was not head 
master, but only an assistant, his sphere was rather his 
own pupil-room than the school. But in that sphere, 
and in his own way, he did for the very dry bones of 
education at Eton what Arnold did at Rugby. ''My 
Tutor " was greatly beloved, as he deserved to be, by 
all his pupils, and the connection always remained a 

[1 This sentence occurs in the article on " The Peelites " in Mac- 
millari's Magazine for October, 1887. — It will be remembered that 
Mr. Gladstone adopted a Home Rule policy in March of the pre- 
vious year, bringing in his Home Rule Bill in the following month ; 
and that the definite formation of the Liberal Unionist Party 
occurred twelve months later, seven months before the appearance 
of Mr. Goldwin Smith's article.] 

[2 May the 18th, 1883. — Edward Coleridge was Fellow of Exeter 
College, Oxford, 1823-1826 ; Assistant Master at Eton, 1824-1850 ; 
Lower Master, 1850-1857 ; Fellow, 1857 ; Vicar of Maple Durham, 
Berks, from 1862 till his death.] 



202 REMINISCENCES 

bond. It drew together even those who, like the Duke 
and myself, had not been contemporaries at Eton. 

I passed a summer with Cardwell in the Phoenix Park 
when he was Secretary for Ireland, and there had the 
advantage both of observing Irish government and of 
hearing Lord O'Hagan, Sir Alexander McDonnell the 
head of the Education Department, Dr. Russell the 
Principal of Maynooth, and other wise and patriotic 
Irishmen, on the Irish Question.^ 

Of Sidney Herbert I did not see so much. He was 
the model of a high-bred English gentleman in public 
life. To the elevation of his character, fully as much 
as to his powers of mind, he owed his high position, his 
designation as a Prime Minister that was to be, and the 
tears shed over his early grave. He had the advantage 
of rank and wealth ; not of rank and wealth only, but 
of historic rank and of wealth associated with the 
poetry of Wilton. Of aristocracy he was the very flower. 
The special qualities of leadership he can hardly be said 
to have shown, and though he administered the War 
Office well, I should not suppose that his power of work 
rivalled that which was possessed by some of his asso- 
ciates. He had, however, beneath a quiet bearing, 
and a slight appearance of aristocratic listlessness, 
plenty of courage and not a little force of character. 
Disraeli, who hated him as Peel's '^ gentleman," at- 
tacked him bitterly and found that he had better have 
let him alone. ''If a man wishes to see humiliation, 

[* Notes on these names will be found in Chapter XVIII.] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 203 

let him look there/' said Sidney Herbert, pointing at 
Disraeli, who had thrown over Protection, with his 
finger, beneath which even Disraeli cowered. Sidney 
Herbert was a High Churchman, and Wilton Church 
shows that the aesthetic element of the school was 
strong in him. Mr. Gladstone, as all the world knows, 
was a High Churchman also; so in a less degree was 
the Duke of Newcastle ; and the combination of political 
Liberalism with Ritualism may be said to have had its 
origin in the secession of the Peelites from the Tory 
party. 

Of Lord Canning I saw something in connection with 
the Oxford University Reform Bill, with which he was 
charged in the House of Lords, and for the debate on 
which I was set to cram him. He seemed to me, I con- 
fess, slow of apprehension and somewhat puzzle-headed. 
It was believed that he was sent to India to get him out 
of the Cabinet where he gave trouble by his opinionative- 
ness; and everybody shuddered, when the Mutiny 
broke out, at the thought that India was in his hands. 
I was dining with Sir Charles Trevelyan,^ who had 
been head of a College in India, and a Chairman of the 
East Indian Company was one of the guests, when news 
arrived of the capture of Delhi by the Sepoy mutineers. 
Great was the consternation. It was increased by mis- 
trust of Lord Canning, then Governor-General of India. 
Canning had been advanced by Peel as a tribute to the 

[1 Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan, Baronet, of Wallington. 1807- 
1886.1 



204 REMINISCENCES 

shade of his father, to whom, however, Peel had never 
done the wrong of which Bentinck, prompted by his 
friend, accused him. But he was slow of intellect, as I 
found when I had to coach him for the debate on the 
Oxford University Bill. In the Cabinet his opinion- 
ativeness gave trouble, and it was understood that he 
had been sent to India, then perfectly quiet, to get him 
out of the way. These misgivings he nobly belied. He 
met the tremendous peril well, and saved the character 
of the country by keeping control over the bloodthirsty 
frenzy of the dominant race, and thereby earning for 
himself the epithet, meant as opprobrious, but really 
glorious, of ''Clemency Canning." What the frenzy in 
India was and into what jeopardy it brought the honour 
of the Imperial country may be learned from the letters 
of the good Lord Elgin ^ and from those of Russell ^ to the 
Times. One Commander proposed impalement. In 
England also frenzy reigned, and horrible were the 
yellings of literary eunuchs displaying their virility by 
cries for blood. Philanthropy itself in the person of 
Lord Shaftesbury ^ was carried away so far as to coun- 
tenance stories of the mutilation of Englishmen by the 
rebels, which, after bringing on a storm of vengeful fury, 
proved unfounded. We had a terrible lesson on the 
moral perils of the Empire. 

Lord Dalhousie's government of India and his State 

[1 James, the eighth Earl.] 

P Alexander Russell, journalist. 1814-1876.] 

[' Anthony Ashley Cooper, eighth Earl.] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 205 

Papers relating to it were another proof of Peel's suc- 
cess in forming administrators. This may be said 
without raising any question as to his Indian policy. 
His name as a member of the British Parliament is 
connected with what has always seemed to me the 
weakest point in Peel's career, the abandonment, on 
the eve of the railway-mania, of the policy of control 
over the construction of railways which Lord Dalhousie 
had earnestly recommended and afterwards applied, 
as Governor-General, to the railway system of India. 
Peel's extreme unwillingness to interfere with the opera- 
tions of trade and commercial enterprise was a fault 
on the right side, but it was a fault. 

Graham,^ as well as Card well, always seemed to me 
a striking instance of the weakness of the system which 
inseparably connects the duty of an administrator with 
that of a legislator on organic questions. As an admin- 
istrator he was first-rate. At the beginning of the 
Crimean War he got the navy with wonderful rapidity 
into first-rate order. He was also excellent as a speaker, 
both in force and clearness. On the organic questions 
with regard to the greatest of which he had played 
leading parts as a member of the Grey Government, 
he seemed to trim and to be playing a game of his own. 
But Parker's Life ^ of him apparently shows that the 
apparent trimming was really an honest avoidance of 

P Sir James Graham, second Baronet, of Netherby.] 

[2 " Life and Letters of Sir James Graham second Baronet of 

Netherby, P.C, G.C.B." 1792-1861. By Charles Stuart Parker. 

2 vols. London : Murray. 1907.] 



206 REMINISCENCES 

doubtful combinations at the expense of his personal 
ambition. Graham's reputation and influence were so 
high that it was said he could command fifty votes in 
the House of Commons, and his foot was on the 
steps of power when he died and in a moment was 
forgotten. 

Of Lord Aberdeen personally I saw nothing. But 
from what his associates said in private, as well as from 
his public conduct, I learned to feel the greatest respect 
for him. It seemed to me that with him for Foreign 
Minister England presented herself to other govern- 
ments as an English gentleman presents himself to 
his fellows, upright and honourable in all his dealings, 
careful to maintain his own rights and dignity, and 
equally careful to respect those of other people. No- 
body ever suspected Lord Aberdeen of trickery, of 
intrigue, or deception of any kind. His despatches 
bear the marks of perfect straightforwardness and 
truth. Though Conservative in diplomacy, he was not 
illiberal; he declared for the repeal of the Corn Laws 
before any of his colleagues, and he never refused his 
assent to any measure of domestic reform. He it 
was who, sitting at Wellington's side when the Duke 
made his fatal declaration against any reform of Par- 
liament, told him that he had undone the party. On 
the other hand, he was anti-revolutionary, and never 
conspired or caballed for propagandist objects against 
the Governments with which he had to deal. He kept 
for his country all her friends, and never made her an 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 207 

enemy. On the Neapolitan question we should have 
liked him to be less discreet. 

Of Lord Russell/ better known in history as Lord 
John Russell, I saw most towards the end of his life, 
when he was living at Richmond, and my wife and I 
were spending a summer on the Terrace. I then 
conversed a good deal with him. He had a vast his- 
toric name as the mover of the Reform Bill of 1832 
and the veteran leader of the Whig party in Parlia- 
ment. But I never could think him very great. He 
was the reverse of Peel; not being a first-rate admin- 
istrator, he was prone to recruit his popularity by 
appeals to the desire of organic change. It is difficult 
not to believe that this propensity was working in him 
when after his explicit declaration of finality he declared 
for fresh extensions of the suffrage, and wept with 
mortification upon being forced to drop his Bill. He 
professed a belief in the elevating and purifying in- 
fluence of responsibility on the political character and 
conduct of the people, in which perhaps he may have 
been sincere. He was not magnanimous. Nothing 
could justify or excuse his coalition with the Protection- 
ists to turn out Peel, nominally on the question of the 
Irish Coercion Bill, really on that of Protection, when 
he had himself acknowledged the necessity for the Bill 
and had committed himself to free trade. Holding 
office in the Coalition Ministry of Lord Aberdeen, he 

[1 First Earl RusseU ; third son of John Russell, sixth Duke of 
Bedford. 1792-1878.1 



208 REMINISCENCES 

was too sensible of the sacrifice which he had made, 
and wanting in hearty loyalty to his chief. His deser- 
tion of his colleagues when Roebuck ^ gave notice of a 
motion of censure, proved, as was said at the time, that 
he had not been at a Public School. Nor was much 
greatness of mind or exalted patriotism shown by his 
eagerness to embarrass and trip up Peel in the Corn 
Law crisis of 1846. Still, he played a great part with 
ability, and as a party leader in the House of Conmions 
had shown consummate skill. Of the speakers he had 
heard he thought the three best were Plunket,^ Can- 
ning, and Peel. Plunket, if I remember rightly, he 
thought the most persuasive ; Canning the most charm- 
ing; Peel the most formidable in debate. He was him- 
self by no means a first-rate speaker, though in his 
speeches there was almost always something above the 
common mark. 

I saw something of Lord Granville,^ a thoroughly 
diplomatic personage, most graceful and engaging. 
''Puss," he was nicknamed from his gentleness. But 
when he was stirred, as he was when Derby and Disraeli 
put a spy at his door to watch his communications with 
the Peelites, it was found that ''Puss had claws." The 
Foreign Office seems to be regarded rather as a sphere 
apart, the holder of which is not bound thoroughly 

[1 John Arthur Roebuck, M.P. for Bath. 1801-1879.] 
[2 William Conyngham Plunket, first Baron Plunket, Lord Chan- 
cellor of Ireland. 1764-1854.] 

[' Granville George Leveson-Gower, second Earl of Granville. 
1815-1891.] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 209 

to share the general poHcy of the Government, but only 
to preserve the outward unity of the Cabinet by his 
vote. Lord Rosebery ^ evidently was not a Home 
Ruler when he gave a regulation vote for Gladstone's 
measure of Home Rule.^ I can hardly believe that 
Lord Granville heartily concurred in Gladstone's 
L-ish policy, though he retained the Foreign Office 
under Gladstone. Sitting beside him at dinner and 
talking to him about politics, I was struck by the con- 
servatism of his tone. Grandees covet the office which 
brings them into the grand circle of Europe. 

Among my London associates was Godley, the 
founder of Canterbury in New Zealand, a notable man 
in his way. As a model colony and a High Church 
Utopia, Canterbury failed, as all model colonies do; 
as did afterwards the model colony in Tennessee, in 
which Thomas Hughes ^ embarked. The colonist who 
has come out only to better himself materially does 
not share the enthusiasm for the ideal. But the 
settlers brought out by Godley to Canterbury, being of 
a respectable and religious class, were, like the Puritan 
colonists, a good moral foundation. 

"Neither Godley nor Sir Frederic Rogers nor any of 
the authorities on colonization with whom I used to 
converse in those days had the slightest tincture of the 

[> Archibald Philip Primrose, fifth Earl of Rosebery.] 

P September the 8th, 1893, when the House of Lords defeated, by 

419 to 41, Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill.] 

P County Court Judge, author of "Tom Brown's School Days." 

1822-1896.] 



210 REMINISCENCES 

Imperialism which we are now called upon, on pain of 
being damned as "Little Englanders," to embrace. 
All looked forward to colonial independence, and re- 
garded England as the destined mother of free nations. 
I believe I am right also in thinking that some even of 
the most Conservative regarded the ultimate union of 
Canada with the rest of her continent as probable if 
not certain. These men were not less regardful and 
proud of the grandeur of their country, though more 
modest in their aims for her, than are members of 
Imperial Leagues. They thought that the greatness 
and power of England were not in her dependencies, but 
in herself. They also felt the value of insular security 
and the weakness of an Empire open to attack in all 
parts of the globe. 

It is with pleasure that I find among my correspon- 
dence a letter from Joseph Chamberlain ^ deprecating 
my opposition to his scheme of planting in each of the 
cities a Radical Caucus to control the representation 
which would have been his tool. He was then in his 
extreme Radical phase, threatening to make property 
pay a ransom for its existence. I saw the man's whole 
career. It was that of a political gambler laying his 
stakes, now on Rouge, now on Noir. He was taken 
into Gladstone's Government to please the Radical 
wing of the party, and intrigued against his chief, 
working up outside the Cabinet a party for himself, 

[1 The Right Honourable Joseph Chamberlain, M.P. for Birming- 
ham since 1885 ; Secretary of State for the Colonies, 1895-1903.] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 211 

and drawing from Gladstone, as Labouchere told us in 
Truth, about the bitterest words that ever fell from 
Mr. Gladstone's lips ; at that time, Gladstone, being still 
Unionist, Chamberlain for Home Rule and in its extreme 
form, that of federation. If Wemyss Reid's state- 
ment ^ regarding the ownership of the Pall Mall Ga- 
zette is true. Chamberlain must have been attacking his 
colleague in the Government, Forster, from behind, 
when Forster was struggling with insurrection in Ire- 
land. When Gladstone was talking Home Rule, 
Chamberlain turned against it, and without apology 
or explanation went over to the Conservative camp, 
became a Jingo, presently took office under the high 
Tory and Imperialist, Lord Salisbury,^ and drew the 
country into the Boer War.^ His next move was a 
repetition against Balfour of the manoeuvre practised 
against Gladstone. After getting rid by a trick of the 
free-trade members of the Cabinet, Chamberlain went 
out of it, leaving his son to work as his confederate in it, 
got up a Protectionist movement of his own, captured 
the party organization and press, meaning when this 
was done to press a dissolution and drive Balfour on 
the rocks. This he did. But the vessel was driven on 
the rocks too hard. To Chamberlain was due the Boer 



P See "Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid, 1842-1885." Edited, 
with an Introduction, by Stuart J. Reid. London : CasseU. 1905. 
Chapter XV.] 

[- He was Colonial Secretary in Lord Salisbiiry's Coalition Min- 
istry of June, 1895.] 

P October, 1899.] 



212 REMINISCENCES 

War, the consequences of which, after seeing them on 
the spot, led him to cover them by an agitation for 
Tariff Reform, as he and his followers call Protection. 

Another public man with whom I was brought into 
connection, though more by correspondence than per- 
sonally, was Earl Grey,^ with whose moderate Liberal- 
ism in politics I sympathized. Macaulay spoke very 
harshly of him because his refusal to form a Govern- 
ment of which Palmerston, the universal disturber, 
was to be Foreign Minister formed the ostensible cause 
of Russell's failure to form a Government upon Peel's 
resignation in 1846. Lord Grey's temper may not 
have been very compliant; but he was a thoroughly 
upright statesman and if he or any one minded as he 
was could have held the helm, all would have gone on 
pretty well. We corresponded a good deal, and he was 
a very old man when I received from him a letter in 
thirty quarto pages on the political situation. 

[1 The third Earl Grey. 1802-1894.] 



CONNECTION WITH PUBLIC MEN 213 

Note by the Editor 

I append here Disraeli's letter to Peel alluded to on page 
177; also parts of the speeches of Peel and Disraeli made in 
the House of Commons when this letter was referred to by 
the first-named, 

"Grosvenor Gate, Sept. 5, 1841. 
"Dear Sir Robert, — 

"I have shrunk from obtruding myself upon you at this moment, 
and should have continued to do so if there were any one on whom I 
could rely to express my feelings. 

"I am not going to trouble you with claims similar to those with 
which you must be wearied. 1 will not say that I have fought since 
1834 four contests for your party, that I have expended great sums, 
have exerted my intelligence to the utmost for the propagation of 
your policy, and have that position in life which can command a 
costly seat. 

"But there is one peculiarity in my case on which I cannot be 
silent. I have had to struggle against a storm of political hate and 
malice which few men ever experienced, from the moment, at the 
instigation of a member of your Cabinet, I enrolled myself under your 
banner, and I have only been sustained under these trials by the 
conviction that the day would come when the foremost man of this 
country would publicly testify that he had some respect for my 
ability and my character. 

"1 confess, to be unrecognized at this moment by you appears to 
me to be overwhelming, and 1 appeal to your own heart — to that 
justice and that magnanimity which I feel are your characteristics — 
to save me from an intolerable humiUation. 

"Beheve me, dear Sir Robert, 

"Your faithful servant, 

"B. Disraeli." 

(Parker's "Life of Peel," Vol. II, page 486.) 

Peel's Speech : — 

"Sir, I will only say of that hon. gentleman that if he, after 
reviewing the whole of my public life — a life extending over thirty 
years previously to my accession to office in 1841 — if he then enter- 
tained the opinion of me which he now professes ; if he thought I 



214 REMINISCENCES 

was guilty of these petty larcenies from Mr. Horner and others, it 
is a little surprising that in the spring of 1841, after his long expe- 
rience of my public career, he should have been prepared to give me 
his confidence. It is still more surprising that he should have been 
ready, as I think he was, to unite his fortunes with mine in office, 
thus implying the strongest proof which any public man can give of 
confidence in the honour and integrity of a Minister of the Crown." 
Hansard, 3 S. Ixxxvi, 689. 

Disraeli's Speech : — 

"I never shall — it is totally foreign to my nature — make an 
application for any place. But in 1841, when the Government was 
formed — I am sorry to touch upon such a matter, but insinuations 
have been made by paragraphs in the newspapers, and now by 
charges in this House — I have never adverted to the subject, but 
when these charges are made, I must. — In 1841, when the Govern- 
ment was formed, an individual possessing, as I believe him to 
possess, the most intimate and complete confidence of the right 
hon. gentleman, called on me and communicated with me. There 
was certainly some conversation — I have certainly never adverted 
to these circumstances, and should not now unless compelled, be- 
cause they were under a seal of secrecy confided in me — there was 
some communication, not at all of that nature which the House 
perhaps supposes, between the right hon. gentleman and me, but of 
the most amicable kind. I can only say this — It was a transaction 
not originated by me, but which any gentleman, I care not how high 
his honour or spirit, might entertain to-morrow." 

Hansard, 3 S. Ixxxvi, 707-708. 



««* 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 

Objects of the School — Peace Policy — Anti-Imperialism — Bright 
and Cobden — Socialism — Property — The Irish Question. 

The members of the Manchester School, or most of 
them, are in their graves. The youngest survivors 
must be seventy. The other day I was reading the 
obituary of my old friend Sir James Stansfield ^ and 
thinking that I must be about the last left of my circle, 
when I received an engraving of the portrait of Sir 
Thomas Bazley,^ a leader of the Manchester School. 
In thanking him I said how much pleasure it gave me 
to know that there were two of us still alive. I re- 
ceived an answer from his son, saying that it was he 
that had sent the portrait, that his own age was seventy, 
and that his father, my friend, if he were alive, would 
be one hundred and two. 

The object of the School was economical. Imperial- 
ism and Militarism it opposed on economical grounds 
as enemies to trade and frugality. It had nothing to 
do with Socialism, but on the contrary was always for 
the liberty to which Socialism would put an end. For 

[1 1820-1898. Held various high political posts ; M.P. for Hali- 
fax ; Under-Secretary of State for India ; etc.] 

[^ 1797-1885. Cotton manufacturer and politician.] 

215 



216 REMINISCENCES 

peace and reduction of armaments it pleaded as a whole 
on economical, its leaders on philanthropic, grounds. 

^ ''School " and not ''Party " is the right term. The 
circle never was formed into a party, never put forth 
a general programme, had not even recognized leaders, 
though it looked up to Bright and Cobden. Its only 
organization was the Anti-Corn-Law League,^ in which 
it had its origin, and which brought its chiefs to the 
front. No doubt, on the part of the manufacturers 
who formed the League, self-interest was strong. 
Some of them, when they had gained their commercial 
object, or, as Cobden said with his usual simplicity, 
when "their gross, pocket question was settled," fell 
away politically, and even became Tories. The senti- 
ment of class, manufacturer against squire, also made 
itself felt. Unhappily, without gross pocket questions 
or sectional sentiment, you will not often find a suffi- 
cient motive power ; and it was by self-interest on the 
part of a Parliament of landowners that the Corn Law 
had been imposed. 

That Free Trade has not made the progress in the 
world which at the moment of victory its English cham- 
pions hoped and predicted, is true; yet the mockery 
with which the prophets are assailed is unjust. What 
has arrested the progress of Free Trade ? Not change 
of conviction, but the political power of sinister inter- 
im What follows, down to page 237, appeared in the Contemporary 
Review, March, 1895, Volume LXVII, pages 377-388.] 

[^ Founded in January, 1839. It was dissolved July 2, 1846.] 



THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 217 

ests, international antipathies, cultivated for the pur- 
poses of Protection, and, above all, the necessity of tax- 
ation created by bloated armaments, for the existence 
of which Manchester peace-mongers assuredly have 
not to answer. ^The Protectionist tariff of the United 
States itself was a war-tariff. Wliile Protectionism 
reigned in American legislation, almost all the pro- 
fessors of political economy in the American Univer- 
sities, and the writers on economy generally, were 
on the side of Free Trade. 

' To the taunt that the world had not continued to 
move in the direction of Cobden's policy. Free Trade 
and peace, Cobden could reply, so much the worse for 
the world. He could not help the revival of the war 
spirit, nor in 1850 could he well have foreseen it. Pitt's 
economical calculations were suddenly wrecked by the 
French Revolution. It was to the United States that 
Cobden looked with special hope, and there all was 
changed by the War of Secession. That Cobden was 
not free from the enthusiasm of his convictions, and 
that he overrated the power of his economic talisman, 
has already been admitted. 

The League having done its work, and the bond 
which it created having come to an end, there remained 
the school of political thought which it had formed. 
There was plenty of room in that school for differences 
of opinion on particular questions, and for varieties of 
degree in the application of the general principles which 
were held in common. ''To try to square the policy 



218 REMINISCENCES 

of the country with the maxims of common sense and 
of a plain morahty " was Bright's description of his 
own aim, and it was the general aim of his school. 

Peace-mongers, Quakers, and Little Englanders were 
epithets freely bestowed on us by the Jingoes. If 
anybody can persuade himself that a Europe armed to 
the teeth and consuming a large part of its earnings in 
preparation for war is a blessing, he may call us any 
names he pleases. We did not preach defencelessness, 
or tame submission to wrong. Cobden said that in 
a just war, though he could not serve in the field, he 
would serve in the hospital. Bright was a Quaker, 
but he had tacitly dropped the extreme sentiments as 
well as the garb and dialect of his community, and 
never, I believe, in his later years, said anything against 
national defence. He was a member of a Government 
which had the army and navy in its charge, though 
he never administered, and would no doubt have 
refused to administer, a War Department. That he 
would have been extreme in his peace policy I do not 
doubt. But surely, for an industrial people dependent 
on trade for its daily bread, if not for a warlike aris- 
tocracy, his was the right extreme. The School stead- 
fastly opposed Palmerston with his Civis Romanus sum 
and his Russian and Chinese wars. On the question 
of the war with China he beat us, and unseated our 
chiefs in a general election by an appeal to what he 
called the honour of the country. Let Palmerston's 
admirers read the letters of his own envoy to China, 



THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 219 

Lord Elgin, in Walrond's excellent Life/ and say by 
whom the real honour of the country was best upheld. 
For nothing was the Manchester School more denounced 
than for its steady opposition to what was supposed 
to be the patriotic policy of perennial enmity to Russia 
and of propping up the Turkish Empire in Europe. 
What now remains of the fruits of the Crimean War 
but the Crimean graves, and to what has Turkish Em- 
pire come? 

Another example is that of the Boer War, which the 
Manchester School would assuredly have opposed, as 
a great Manchester journal most gallantly did oppose, 
and the only fruit of which was the loss of two hundred 
and fifty millions of money and a far worse loss of 
honour. 

It was always possible, as I can bear witness, to 
belong to the Manchester School, and at the same time 
to regard the British army and navy with the heartiest 
attachment and their achievements with the liveliest 
pride; though it was not possible for any one belong- 
ing to the Manchester School to join in the Jingo 
choruses of the music-halls, or to forget the responsi- 
bility that rests on every civilian who incites to war. 
On this subject there were different shades of sentiment 
among us. Some of us thought, and, as the event 

[' " Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin, Governor 
of Jamaica, Governor-General of Canada, Envoy to China, Viceroy 
of India." Edited by Theodore Walrond, C.B. With a Preface by 
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster. London: 

Murray. 1872.] 



220 REMINISCENCES 

proved, with reason, that Bright and Cobden were 
too much incHned to rely on the good faith of the 
French Emperor ^ and to deride the necessity of pre- 
parations against his restlessness, his necessities, and 
the schemes to which his necessities gave birth. The 
extravagances of the panic-mongers had driven them 
to the opposite extreme. They also, perhaps, gave the 
Emperor credit for better motives than those which 
really actuated him in making the commercial treaty. 
They did wrong, as some of their followers thought and 
think, in discouraging the volunteer movement. They, 
however, did not quarrel with those among their friends 
who like myself enlisted as volunteers. That the real 
occasions for war are very few, and that instead of 
courting and provoking it, every effort ought to be 
made to avert it and to keep its spirit under control 
were, it is to be believed, the only necessary articles 
of the Manchester creed in relation to this subject. 
For these we must answer at the tribunal of history 
if we ever have the honour to come before it. 

The question between intervention and non-inter- 
vention, again, was one on which, though our general 
principle was non-intervention, we recognized no hard- 
and-fast line. To meddling with the domestic affairs 
or institutions of other nations we were generally op- 
posed. There would probably have been difference 
of opinion as to intervention in favour of Italian inde- 
pendence. Garibaldi, however, had passionate ad- 
[1 Napoleon III.] 



THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 221 

mirers and supporters in the personal circle of Bright 
and Cobden. I do not think that any of us denied 
that there was a community of nations, or that a right 
and clear cause must be upheld and wrong put down. 

Again, during the War of Secession in the United 
States, at Manchester was the centre of opposition to 
sympathy and alliance with the slave power. For 
this, too, we were denounced as negrophilists, enemies 
to British interests, and patriots of every country 
but our own. Those reproaches have sunk in silence. 
We saw the party of alliance with the slave power go 
into an inner chamber to hide itself, and almost 
cringe to the victorious Republic. 

Just now ^ the particular cry against the School and 
its memory is that we were anti-colonial and wanted to 
get rid of the colonies, a base design in which we are 
triumphantly told we have failed, after being tantalized 
by a near approach to success. To get rid of the 
colonies, as it would be highly criminal, is happily 
impossible, the relation between the Mother-country 
and a colony being one which can never be annulled. 
A colony need not be a dependency, nor have the most 
successful colonies been dependent. The tie between 
Greek Mother-country and colony was strong though 
purely parental. To promote colonial independence 
was our aim, and a great step towards it was made by 
the completion of colonial self-government and the with- 
drawal of the troops. By the withdrawal of the troops 

[1 This was written about January, 1895.] 



222 REMINISCENCES 

the British taxpayer obtained reUef from the expendi- 
ture on Maori and Kaffir wars which had cost many 
milHons, and would probably have continued so long 
as the colonists had British troops at their command. 
The colonists gained not less in humanity and in self- 
reliance. By neither measure is it now contended that 
the colonies have suffered, or that the mutual affection 
of the Mother-country and the colonies has been 
impaired, much as was said against both at the time. 
Imperial Federationists are now trying to reverse the 
Manchester policy. But they have not yet achieved 
any practical success. We never wished to make 
England little. We believed that her greatness was 
in herself, and was only impaired by the dissipation 
of her forces, and her exposure, through her dependen- 
cies, to attack in every quarter of the globe. The 
England of Cromwell was not little. 

If, in regard to Imperial and foreign policy generally, 
the Manchester School has been in favour of neutrality, 
moderation, and justice, rather than of meddling, 
bullying, and aggression, surely there is in this nothing 
that need grate on a patriotic ear. Scrupulous regard 
for the rights and for the honour of others, while you 
manfully maintain your own, is the rule of an English 
gentleman's conduct in private life, and it never entails 
loss of dignity, seldom loss of anything else. Review 
the diplomatic and Imperial history of England in 
this light, and say which of the two policies has been 
that of her best rulers, and by which of the two most 



THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 223 

has been gained or lost. Is it possible that quarrel- 
someness and aggressiveness should be the true policy 
of a country with a world-wide commerce, with depend- 
encies open to attack in every part of the world, and 
dependent on the importation of raw materials? 

Then, the Manchester men were unsentimental. 
They were ''cotton-spinners " and ''bagmen," with the 
gross and sordid notions of their trade. It was not 
likely that, owing its origin to a commercial question, 
and having its seat in a manufacturing centre, the 
School would be particularly poetic. On some occa- 
sions, as in the struggle against slavery, the culture of 
the country was almost all on the other side. No 
doubt the school had the defects of its qualities and 
the exaggerations of its principles. But if Bright and 
Cobden directed their political efforts to the promotion 
of material welfare, it was not because they were in- 
capable of appreciating spiritual things, or set material 
things above them, but because they thought that 
the material welfare of the people was the special object 
of government. Cobden said that he valued religious 
equality more than commercial freedom. One can only 
smile at the idea that there was less of sentiment in 
Bright or Cobden than in a Tory squire or colonel. 
In both of them there was rather more. Bright adored 
Milton, and read poetry, as well as the Bible, better 
than any other man I ever heard : nor could any man 
talk with more interest on high subjects. Cobden 
was a reader of Burke, Spenser, and Cervantes, as his 



224 REMINISCENCES 

speeches and pamphlets show. He read Demosthenes 
in a translation. Bright's speeches are classic, and 
Cobden was a first-rate writer in a plain style. His 
heart was thoroughly open to beauty and to poetical 
impressions of every kind. When he was asked by 
a friend who was about to visit America whether 
Niagara was worth a special journey, his answer was: 
"There are two sublimities in Nature: one of rest, the 
other of motion; the sublimity in rest are the distant 
Alps, the sublimity of motion is Niagara." ^ Let it 
be remembered, too, that a sentiment, though different 
from that of war and aggrandizement, attaches to the 
prosperous industry which brings with it kindly feel- 
ings, self-respect, cheerful hearts, and happy homes. 
As to character, our belief was that if the people were 
prosperous they would be happy, and that if they were 
happy they would as a rule be good. 

We of the Manchester School were, or flattered our- 
selves that we were, thorough going reformers in a prac- 
tical way. Bright stood aloof from the two aristocratic 
parties, and compared them to two trading establish- 
ments which pretended to be rivals, and courted custom 
by running each other down till each became bankrupt, 
when it turned out that both were the same concern. 
We looked forward to the elimination of the hereditary 
principle from legislation. We also looked forward 
to the severance of the connection between Church and 
State, and all the more earnestly when the State clergy 
p See also Chapter VI, page 89.] 



THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 225 

preached war, or rang their church-bells on the acquittal 
of Governor Eyre ; ^ though opposition to a State Church 
was not opposition to religion, for both Bright and 
Cobden were religious men, and Cobden remained a 
member of the Church of England, saying that it had 
been the Church of his mother. It seems that events 
have not condemned us, and it would have been better 
to have considered betimes the expediency of changes 
for contemplating which we were called revolutionists. 
Revolutionists we never were, nor can any revolution- 
ary party claim the allegiance of any of the survivors 
of us. To make the past slide quietly into the future 
was Bright's conception of statesmanship, as expressed 
by himself. Peel, as the Minister of practical reform, 
had our strong sympathy. In a memorable letter, 
Cobden tendered him not only sympathy, but support. 
Cobden, as may be gathered from Mr. Morley's Life 
of him, was rather indisposed to move in the line of 
organic change, and preferred to devote his energies 
to economic improvement. 

On looking back, I think it must be owned that we 
were somewhat too trustful of the political intelligence 
of the masses, and too ready to concur in the sweeping 
extension of the suffrage. For this, perhaps, more 
than for anything else, we may have to fear the verdict 
of posterity. Not from us, however, but from Lord 
John Russell and the Whigs came the first proposal 
to disturb the settlement of 1832. In Cobden's writings 

[1 See Chapter XX.] 
Q 



226 REMINISCENCES 

will be found clear perception of the danger of popular 
ignorance and folly, loyalty to government by intelli- 
gence, and freedom from sympathy with anything 
like mob rule. The Chartists were enemies to the 
League. One of tlic School, at least, believes that he 
can truly say that he never addressed an audience of 
working-men on the subject without avowing his belief 
that the franchise was a trust, for which qualifications 
\ ought to be required. It must be remembered, too, 
that we were for a reform of the House of Lords, a 
measure then thought revolutionary, but which, if it 
could now be carried in an effective shape, might redress 
the balance of the Constitution. It must further be 
remembered that Bright and Cobden were sincere, and 
had no selfish or party end in view. They were not 
like the Whigs and Tories, who were bidding against 
each other for power by largesses of the suffrage. Their 
object was not to ''dish " Whigs or Tories, but to set 
Parliament free from the landowning oligarchy, by 
which it was still dominated, and to bring it into unison 
with the interest of the whole nation. 

The Corn Law struggle unhappily took the shape of a 
war between two classes, the landowners and the mill- 
owners, which was waged with great bitterness on both 
sides, and certainly not with the least bitterness on 
the side of the landowners. I am not aware that either 
Bright or Cobden was a strenuous advocate of peasant- 
ownership, though they would gladly have seen the 
great estates of the present aristocracy broken up, and 



THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 227 

an end put to the divorce of the people from the land. 
They could hardly fail to see that agricultural England 
was almost irreversibly organized on the principle of 
large farms. But they did, in the heat of conflict, 
make somewhat unmeasured attacks on the squire 
and the manorial system. There was no denying, 
however, that the condition of the peasantry in those 
days over large districts was very wretched and dis- 
creditable to their masters. Too symbolical of it was 
the pair of trousers belonging to a Dorsetshire peasant 
exhibited in the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, which 
stood upright with grease and patches. The landlord's 
pretence that he was defending the labourer against 
Free Trade could not possibly be treated with respect. 
The weak point in the manorial system is that it de- 
pends on the willingness of a rich man to do unforced 
duty. In anything like a malignant and fanatical 
attack on the landed gentry as a class, or an attempt 
to use taxation as an instrument for their ruin, I do 
not believe that Bright or Cobden would for a moment 
have thought of taking part. 

^' To the character of our leaders I think we may point 
with reasonable pride. They had their failings, no 
doubt, but in the main they were actuated through 
their whole career, not by ambition or self-interest, 
but by a sincere belief that what they were doing was 
for the public good. There is something in this at 
least as noble as the vociferous patriotism which leads 
to the prizes of ambition. For Cobden a handsome 



228 REMINISCENCES 

provision was made by generous friends, of whom 
Mr. Thomasson ^ of Bolton was the chief. He had 
left his business to give himself to the cause. Why was 
the tribute which he received from gratitude, and had 
amply earned, less honourable than the fortune which 
a member of the landed aristocracy inherits by birth? 
The same Tory Press which denounced Cobden as a 
mendicant charged Bright as a manufacturer with 
hard and rapacious treatment of his workmen ; Bright 
said nothing, but the workmen came forward, and gave 
the accusers an answer which silenced them forever. 

I do not think that either Bright or Cobden looked 
very favourably on the trade unions. They were 
master manufacturers, and the unions, at Sheffield 
especially, showed their bad as well as their good side. 
My own convictions as well as my sympathies led me 
to fight for the unions, which seemed to me absolutely 
necessary if justice was to be done the artisan against 
the united phalanx of employers. I received some 
hard knocks in the fray. I stood with the heartiest 
satisfaction on the platform of Joseph Arch, who 
behaved unexceptionably, never giving a political 
turn or that of a social war to his movement. For 
the movement he had heart-rending cause in the wages 
of farm labour and the state of the rural poor. 

With the Socialists the Manchester School never had 
anything in common, except the most general desire 

[' Thomas Thomasson, manufactiirer and political economist. 
1808-1876.] 



THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 229 

to remove economical injustice and to promote the 
good of the whole people. Its motto, often repeated 
by Bright and Cobden, was 

"All constraint, 
Except what Wisdom lays on evil men, 
Is evil." 

It thought that man having, after centuries of struggle, 
shaken himself free from the paternal control of auto- 
crats or aristocracy, and got a chance of self-develop- 
ment, ought to be allowed to make what he could of 
that chance, and not thrust again under a despotic 
yoke, even though the despot, instead of being a king, 
might be a committee representing the trade unions. 
It regarded the general function of Government as 
that of protecting, not regulating, the conduct of life. 
''I would rather," said Cobden, ''live in a country 
where this feeling in favour of individual freedom is 
jealously cherished than be without it in the enjoyment 
of all the principles of the French Constituent As- 
sembly." The principle was no doubt carried to excess 
in the attitude of some of the Manchester men towards 
factory legislation. Nor was their combat, in this case 
any more than in that of the Corn Laws, untainted 
by self-interest. On the other hand, the landowners, 
in pressing the Factory Acts, were certainly actuated 
in some measure by a desire to retaliate on the land- 
owners for the repeal of the Corn Laws. Brougham, 
who had no interest in manufactures, was, on principle, 
an opponent of the Factory Acts. We were, and the 



230 REMINISCENCES 

survivors of us still are, for liberty. But liberty, in 
our conception, was not selfish and inhuman isolation. 
No one ever was a greater lover of liberty, or could 
have been less congenial to Socialists, than Bright's 
particular idol Milton, who deliberately sacrificed his 
eyesight to the public service. Self-help is mutual 
help, because, constituted and related as we are, we 
all, at every moment of our lives, stand in need of each 
other's aid; whereas, under a paternal Government, 
be it that of an ordinary despot or of a Socialist com- 
mittee, each man will look more to the Government and 
less to his fellows. Wliat does Individualism, against 
wliich there is now such an outcry, mean? Does it 
mean self-exertion and self-reliance, or does it mean 
selfish isolation? If the latter, I repeat, it was never 
preached by the Manchester School. Freedom does 
not preclude voluntary association, which may co-exist 
with it to any extent; whereas, under the Socialistic 
system, voluntary association would be no more. 
There would be an end, too, apparently, of private 
beneficence. Some Socialists seem to go as far as the 
abolition of domestic ties. In Bellamy's Utopia ^ no 
child is to be dependent on parental care. As to the 
limits of government, I am not aware that the Man- 
chester School ever attempted exactly to fix them. 
They must be fixed largely by circumstances, and by 
the stage of social progress at which any community 

[1 "Looking Backward." Boston and New York: Houghton 
Mifflin Co. 1890.1 



THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 231 

has arrived. The paternal meddhng of Peter the 
Great may not have been so bad for the Russia of his 
time, nor may that of the Jesuit have been so bad for 
Paraguay. What services Government should under- 
take, whether it should own the railways as well as 
the highroads, and the telegraph as well as the post; 
whether it should build in private yards or in yards 
of its own, is not a question of principle; nor am I 
aware that the Manchester School ever enunciated 
any dogma on the subject. It is in the hands of offi- 
cials, let us remember, not in those of the community 
at large, with its collective wisdom, that, under the 
Socialist dispensation, we should be. A system of 
State education, which Cobden, by the way, favoured, 
is in the charge of the Minister of Education and his 
bureaucratic subordinates. However, let Government 
do that which the citizen cannot do for himself with 
the aid of voluntary association, and let it protect all 
who cannot protect themselves. To say this, one need 
not be a Socialist. No man of sense will object to good 
sanitary regulations or to the adoption of the necessary 
means of enforcing them, any more than he will rejoice 
in the extension of official interference for its own sake, 
or in the growth of an army of inspectors. Nor does 
even a limitation of the hours of adult labour, as a 
measure of public health, whether it be wise or unwise, 
violate the general principle of freedom of contract, 
or answer to the aspirations of the Socialist who wishes 
to put the State in the place of the capitalist, and make 



232 REMINISCENCES 

it the employer of labour. But when we are told that 
an entity called the State has rights transcending 
those of the individual citizen, and that it is the State's 
duty to regulate our industries and lives, the answer 
is that the State, if it means anything but the Govern- 
ment, is a mere abstraction, which can have no rights 
or duties of any kind. 

In property, again, the Manchester School, like 
everybody but Proudhon in those days, believed. We 
believed in it as the only known motive power of pro- 
duction, and at the same time the foundation of domes- 
tic life. We wished to do away with such a privilege 
as the power of entail ; but we thought that all a man's 
honest earnings, whether great or small, were his own, 
and that this, being the only incentive to earning and 
saving, was for the good of the community as well as 
for that of the individual man, unless a race of men 
could be found willing to work, not for themselves and 
their families, but for the community at large. We 
should have gone heartily with any one who sought 
to regulate taxation so that as little of the burden as 
possible should fall upon the poor; though we should 
not have gone with any one who wished to use the tax- 
ing power for the purpose of demagogic confiscation. 
We were never, I believe, for the spoliation of the few 
by the many, any more than for that of the many by 
the few. By Cobden, in his controversy with Delane,^ 
anything like agrarian rapine was indignantly dis- 

P John Thadeus Delane, editor of The Times. This was in 1863.] 



THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 233 

claimed. Peace and economy, we hoped, would afford 
fiscal relief to all, and especially to the working-classes ; 
while the increase of wages, arising from Free Trade 
and its consequences, was at any rate a larger measure 
of upward levelling than any which Socialism with its 
ateliers nationaux has yet achieved. 

The hopes of the Manchester School were limited to 
gradual improvement. The last millennium in his- 
tory, which was that of French fraternity, had covered 
the century with its wreck. It may be that a new era 
is now opening, and that the social organism is at last 
to be, not improved only, but transformed. Socialists, 
however, have not yet told us what their scheme of a 
reconstituted society is, or how they propose to put it 
in execution. They must bear in mind that for the 
construction of the new edifice they have only those 
human materials which they have already condemned 
as full of prejudice, selfishness, and the evil traditions 
of property and competition. At present, we have 
nothing before us but most general principles or senti- 
ments, sometimes embodied in Utopian visions of fic- 
titious characters who wake from a magic sleep or 
pass through some fissure of the earth into a social and 
material paradise free from cupidity, from competition, 
from pecuniary transactions, and almost from disease 
and death. Meanwhile, the wage-earning classes 
through Europe, the mechanics especially, are imbibing 
and proceeding to act upon a very practical Socialism 
of their own. They are learning that instead of im- 



234 REMINISCENCES 

proving their lot by frugality, temperance, and faithful 
industry, it will be easier and more pleasant to use 
their political power in transferring the property of 
the other classes to themselves. In almost all countries 
governed by popular vote a reign of legislative confis- 
cation seems to be setting in, and demagogues are 
beginning to vie with each other in the purchase of 
votes by largesses of public money — that is, the 
money of all except the politically favoured class. 
Labour is in danger of being demoralized, and unless 
the owners of property are willing to be plundered 
without limit, they will presently turn to bay, and 
there will be social war, in which the victory of the 
demagogues and noasses is not assured. If the trans- 
formation of society is to take place through the rival 
action of political parties bidding against each other 
for power, the crash is not far off. 

I cannot help, in conclusion, protesting that nothing 
can be more unjust than to charge Bright and his 
associates with apostasy because they refused to turn 
round with Mr. Gladstone on the Irish Question. They 
had all along been hearty friends to justice for Ireland, 
heartier friends, if practical effort is to be the measure, 
than the Irish Members of Parliament themselves. 
They had strenuously pleaded for the disestablishment 
of the State Church in Ireland, for the reform of the 
Irish land system, for the payment of the tenants for 
improvements, for the abolition of primogeniture, 
for every righteous measure that could help the people 



THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 235 

to the possession of land, though not for the subversion 
of the faith of contracts, or for the spohation of pro- 
prietors. They had done this long before the conver- 
sion of Mr. Gladstone to the policy which he himself 
denounced as that of ''dismemberment and rapine." 
They had always been favourable in a general way to 
the extension of local self-government. But not one 
of them, I believe, had ever committed himself to Home 
Rule or disunion in any form. Cobden shrank from 
alliance, almost from contact, with O'Connell, and in 
answer to the advocates of Repeal, said that the real 
source of evil was in the character of the Irish Members 
of Parliament, which he thought would not be improved 
by transferring them from Westminster to Dublin. 

I was myself supposed at the time to have truly 
reflected the sentiments of my friends in a work on 
''Irish History and Irish Character." ^ Much of the 
historical part of that book has required and undergone 
modification in the light of subsequent research. But 
in its practical conclusions it is Unionist and as much 
opposed to Mr. Gladstone's measure of Home Rule as 
anything I could write now. A man must surely be 
steeped in party spirit if he can persuade himself that 
we were all bound at Mr. Gladstone's bidding to change 
in a day the opinions of our lives, not only about Irish 
policy, but about Irish history, and to join him in de- 
nouncing as a monstrous crime what he himself lauded 

[* " Irish History and Irish Character." By Goldwin Smith. 
Oxford and London : J. H. and Jas. Parker. 1862.] 



236 REMINISCENCES 

as the great work of Pitt. Was it supposed that we 
could shut our eyes to the circumstances under which 
Mr. Gladstone's sudden conversion to Home Rule 
took place ? Were we bound to go with him in reviving 
the hideous memories and rekindling the hateful pas- 
sions of a war of Irish races, in setting the masses against 
the classes, and ignorance against intelligence, in reviv- 
ing dead jealousies and antipathies among the different 
sections of the United Kingdom — all for the purpose 
of forcing on the nation a policy in which we had never 
believed, and which the nation, if the issue could be 
clearly tendered to it, free from irrelevant subjects of 
agitation, would manifestly condemn? We had never 
bound ourselves to Mr. Gladstone's leadership. We 
rejoiced, of course, when he gradually came over to us 
and carried Liberal measures, such as University Re- 
form and Irish Disestablishment, which he had once 
opposed. We rejoiced when the most distinguished 
member of the Government which made the Crimean 
War, not only abandoned, but denounced. Protectorate 
of Turkey. On the British question of Free Trade 
Mr. Gladstone was always with us, and we knew how 
to value his support. Still, there were points of dif- 
ference. Mr. Gladstone seemed to be unchangeably 
committed to the principle of English Church Establish- 
ment. He seemed also strongly attached to hereditary 
institutions, and we hardly knew of which party he 
would have become the leader if Disraeli had been out 
of the way. Bright left Mr. Gladstone's Government 



THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL 237 

on the Egyptian Question, and, as I have said, I know 
that he felt strongly about it, though he was too chiv- 
alrous to attack in public the Government of which 
he had been a member. Our chiefs had preserved 
perfect independence, and when we went with the sur- 
vivor of them on the Irish Question, we were being true 
to personal connection as well as to public principles. 

Society, as was said before, may be at the opening 
of a new era and on the eve of a complete reconstruction. 
Even in that case it may be hoped that the champions 
of Free Trade, retrenchment, religious equality, peace, 
and "& government squared to the maxims of common 
sense and a plain morality," will be held to have done 
not badly in their brief day. How it will fare with our 
belief in liberty and property remains to be seen. If 
coercion and confiscation gain the day and make the 
world happy, our principles will lie forever in the grave 
of extinct superstitions. Otherwise, Resurgemus. / 



CHAPTER XIV 

BRIGHT AND COBDEN 

Blight's Oratory — Cobden — His politics — Peel — Disraeli — Peel 
as a Party Leader. 

Liberalism — colonial, economical, an ' general — had 
early connected me with Bright and Cobden; but the 
tie was rendered much closer by sympathy and joint 
action at the time of the war in America between North 
and South. 

Few would hesitate to give John Bright the foremost 
place among the British orators of his day. The ques- 
tion whether his speeches were prepared has been de- 
bated. But there can be no doubt upon the point. I 
have stood by him when he was speaking and seen the 
little sheaf of notepapers on each of which probably his 
sentence or his catchword was written and which 
dropped into his hat as he went on. Nobody can speak 
literature ex tempore, and Bright's great speeches are 
literature, first-rate of its kind. He was, however, by 
no means without the power of speaking ex tempore. 
I have known him when called on unexpectedly respond 
very well. If he was interrupted by an opponent in his 
speech, he was ready with his retort. He told me that 
when he was to speak at the unveiling of Cobden's 

238 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 239 

Statue at Bradford he had been greatly at a loss as to 
what he should say ; but the happy thought had come to 
him one morning while he was dressing. He had begun 
as a temperance lecturer with a single address. He had 
no doubt formed his style on the Bible, which I never 
heard read so well as when I heard him read it to his 
household. His delivery was calm and impressive, 
without gesticulation or appearance of oratorical pas- 
sion. His enunciation was perfectly distinct, and he 
thus without straining his voice made himself heard in 
the largest hall. He confessed to me that after all his 
practice and success he never got over his nervousness. 
At Bradford, where his audience was more than friendly, 
he told me that his knees shook under him when he rose 
to speak. 

An orator, however perfect in his art, can hardly be 
impressive without weight and dignity of character. 
These John Bright had in a high degree. Nobody could 
doubt his sincerity or the depth of his convictions. 
Though he was combative and they caricatured him as 
the fighting Quaker, he never lost his balance. He 
gave remarkable proofs of greatness of mind. He long 
bore in silence slanderous reports about his treatment 
of his work-people, and when the denial came it was not 
from him, but from the work-people themselves. When 
he was opposing the Crimean War and I told him in 
jest that his life was threatened by the Jingoes, his 
reply was that a man might come to a worse end. Nor 
did he ever betray selfish ambition or pique. When he 



240 REMINISCENCES 

left Gladstone's Ministry on account of its invasion of 
Egypt/ though in private he spoke very warmly on the 
subject, he was too chivalrous to say in public anything 
which could embarrass his late colleagues. 

Oratory was his sphere. For business he had not 
much aptitude. I understood that as Chancellor of 
the Duchy of Lancaster he was very little at his office. 
In truth, I should think that he was by nature rather 
indolent and required strong stimulus, such as the Corn 
Law agitation, to make him put forth his powers. In 
his face there is a certain likeness to Pym. But in 
Pym's face you see the man of action ; in that of Bright 
you did not. 

Bright probably did not read much beyond the mate- 
rials of his speeches. He was, however, fond of sono- 
rous poetry, and once read aloud to me with great gusto 
a sonorous passage from the ''Epic of Hades." ^ Of 
Milton he was very fond, both on poetical and political 
grounds. He asked me whom I thought the greatest of 
Englishmen, and answered his own question by naming 
Milton, because Milton was so great at once as a man of 
letters and as a citizen. On his seventieth birthday, 
when his friends were sending him presents, I got a copy 
of the Baskerville ''Milton" printed at Birmingham, 
for which Bright was then Member, and wrote his own 
words on the fly-leaf. 

He had doffed the Quaker dress and given up the 
Quaker dialect ; but if you had said anything disparag- 
[1 In 1882.] P By Lewis Morris.] 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 241 

ing of Quakerism before him, you would soon have 
found that lie had not renounced his faith. One of the 
last conversations which I had with him was about the 
religious difficulties of our time. He seemed to think 
that Quakerism or something like it was the true 
solution; and that we had only to get rid of forms 
which interfered with the freedom of our spiritual 
life. 

Bright never was revolutionary or desirous of over- 
turning any Government which he believed would do 
justice to the people. It was the class character of the 
aristocratic and landlord Government that provoked 
his enmity. In the last years of his life when the com- 
mercial battle between the New England of the North 
and the Old England of the South was over, he softened 
very much towards old institutions, as old institutions 
did toward him. As he sat on my lawn at Oxford one 
summer afternoon when the music of bells was floating 
from the ancient city, I overheard him say, ''It would be 
very pleasant to be eighteen and to be coming here." 

At a critical moment of the Home Rule agitation 
there was a dinner party of three at the house of Lord 
Selborne at which the Irish question was discussed. If 
Bright's opinion had not been fixed before, I think it was 
fixed then. What may safely be said is that he had the 
good of Ireland as much as that of England in view. 
His wisdom told him where it lay. He was utterly 
incapable of sacrificing justice or the real interest of any 
people to British or Imperial dominion. 



242 REMINISCENCES 

^ Cobden too, I had the happiness of knowing well, 
and I can bear witness to the truth of Mr. Morley's 
portrait of him. A man more transparently honest, 
more single-minded, more truthful, more entirely 
devoid of selfish ambition and of selfishness of every 
kind, more absolutely devoted to the service of his 
country and of humanity, never, I should think, ap- 
peared in public life. The persuasiveness of his elo- 
quence was simply the result of his character. In 
rhetoric he was not great. His kindness of heart, his 
charity, his candour, had remained unimpaired by all 
his battles. Wrong and oppression he hated with all 
his soul : but he had no enmities, any more than he had 
rivalries. His nature was entirely sweet and sound. 

He was no bagman, though his enemies called him so, 
and he freely called himself so in jest. He had not re- 
ceived a good education at school, but he had educated 
— and not only educated, but cultivated — his intellect 
in gratifying his boundless love of knowledge. He had 
explored and studied Europe, economical, social, and 
political, with a curious eye and a comprehensive mind. 
He was acute and exact in observing the connection of 
the different influences which form national character 
with each other, and was a true social philosopher, 
though without a formal system. His insight into 
political character and tendency was very keen. In 
1849 he foresaw the Tory Suffrage Bill of 1867. 

[1 What follows, down to page 271, appeared in The Nineteenth 
Century for June, 1888.] 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 243 

''May I predict that, if we should succeed to the extent 
above named, there would not be wanting shrewd mem- 
bers of the Tory aristocracy who would be found 
advocating universal suffrage to take their chance in an 
appeal to the ignorance and vice of the country against 
the opinions of the teetotallers. Nonconformists, and 
rational Radicals, who would constitute nine-tenths 
of our phalanx of forty-shilling freeholders." Nor 
was he without literary or even without classical inter- 
ests, notwithstanding his rather economical sayings 
about the scanty waters of the Ilissus, and the terri- 
torial insignificance of the scenes of Greek history. He 
would talk, and talk well, about Greek oratory and the 
Greek drama, which he had explored as well as he could 
through translations. He was apparently a little dis- 
appointed by the absence of passionate rhetoric in 
Demosthenes. Cobden's style is excellent for its pur- 
pose, which is that of the pamphleteer. Cobden's 
favourite poet was Cowper, who touched him morally. 
For poetry of the deeper and more philosophic kind, he 
probably did not much care. But he had an eye and a 
heart for nature. On the whole it may pretty safely 
be said, that among all those who affected scorn of 
Cobden's vulgarity and narrowness, there would prob- 
ably not have been found so rich or so comprehensive 
a mind. 

In a striking passage quoted by Mr. Morley,* Cobden 

[1 "Life of Richard Cobden." London: Chapman and Hall. 
1881. Volume I, pages 200-202.] 



244 REMINISCENCES 

says emphatically, that the basis of his own character 
was religious, that his sympathies were with religious 
men, and that it was his ''reverence" that sustained 
him through the labours and struggles of his public life. 
I have no doubt that he spoke the truth. He was not 
in the least sectarian; he was a devout believer in 
phrenology, the crude precursor of scientific rational- 
ism; but he certainly was religious, and always felt 
that in bravely doing his duty, in upholding righteous- 
ness, in labouring for the good of his kind, he was in the 
hand of God. 

This man was not an un-English man, but, on the 
contrary, the truest and heartiest of patriots. Na- 
tional swagger he hated as well as national injustice; 
but the pages of his life show that he was as proud 
as any swaggerer of the high qualities and the great 
achievements of his countrymen, while he had a large- 
minded and generous appreciation of the special excel- 
lences and advantages of other nations. England, as 
represented by him, was a gentleman, and not a bully. 
He desired for his country the leadership of interna- 
tional morality, and he believed that her real interest 
was bound up with the interest of humanity ; but he did 
not disregard her interest ; on the contrary, he always 
looked to it first, and never without distinct reference 
to it proposed any plan of cosmopolitan improvement. 
If he advocated and encouraged a friend to advocate 
colonial emancipation, it was not because either of them 
wished to deprive their country of anything that could 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 245 

bring her wealth or strength, but because both of them 
were convinced that these distant dependencies brought 
neither wealth nor strength, but, on the contrary, loss 
of money and weakness; that, in a military point of 
view, they entailed a forfeiture of the advantages of an 
insular position; and that the only bond which could 
permanently and usefully unite England to free colonies 
was the bond of the heart. He certainly looked forward 
to the ultimate junction of Canada with the United 
States, and the union of the whole English-speaking race 
on the American continent; but he expected this to 
take place with the consent of the Mother-country, and 
believed that it would be greatly to her advantage. 

Cobden had no sympathy with Repeal. His policy 
for Ireland was the abolition of the feudal land law, 
which fosters great estates and, in the case of Ireland, 
absenteeism. The feudal law ought indeed to have 
been abolished, by the abrogation of primogeniture and 
entail, before entering on a course of more violent and 
equivocal legislation, 

Mr. Kinglake says that Cobden and his great asso- 
ciate had no chance of getting a hearing when they 
strove to keep the peace with Russia, because, as they 
had declared against war in general, it was impossible 
that they should command attention when they spoke 
against any particular war.^ Mr. Morley replies ^ with 

[' See "The Invasion of the Crimea : its Origin, and an Account 
of its Progress down to the Death of Lord Raglan." By Alexander 
William Kinglake. Volume I, pages 270 et seq. New York : 
Harper. 1880. Volume II, pages 69-71 of the English edition.] 

p "Life of Richard Cobden." Volume II, pages 157 et seq.] 



246 REMINISCENCES 

truth that Cobden had not declared against war in gen- 
eral. But he had attended Peace Conferences, the ob- 
ject of which was to denounce all war. A demonstra- 
tion for or against a definite measure or course of policy, 
such as the repeal of the Corn Laws or the support of 
the Ottoman dominion, is often useful; but a demon- 
stration in favour of a general principle always seems 
to commit, and usually does in fact commit, those who 
take part in it to an indiscriminate application. Cob- 
den's authority on questions of peace and war was 
weakened in this way. 

Hardly any mind can escape the bias of its history; 
Cobden's had no doubt contracted a bias, and a serious 
one, from the Free Trade struggle. Absolutely free 
from any sordid sentiment, from any disposition to be- 
lieve that man lives by bread alone, from any conscious 
preference of material over moral and political con- 
sideration, he yet was inclined to overrate the be- 
neficent power of commercial influences, and conse- 
quently the value of conmiercial objects. This was 
seen at the beginning of the war between the free and 
slave States in America, when, though his heart was as 
thoroughly on the side of political and industrial free- 
dom as that of any human being could be, he was for a 
time prevented from raising his voice for the right, if 
not held in a wavering state of mind, by his strong feel- 
ing in favour of the Southerners as Free Traders; 
though he could hardly have helped knowing that with 
them, Free Trade was not an enlightened principle, but 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 247 

the necessity of a community incapable of manufactur- 
ing for itself. The same thing was seen again in the 
case of the French Treaty. Mr. Morley is mistaken in 
thinking that anybody objected to negotiating with the 
French Government on account of its character and 
origin; we were all ready to do business with Nero; 
though certainly, if there was a hand which Liberals 
might be excused for not wishing to take even in the 
course of business, it was that of Louis Napoleon. The 
objection which some of us felt was to abetting the Em- 
peror in an arbitrary use of his treaty-making power 
for the purpose of overriding, on a question of domestic 
policy, the well-known sentiments of his Legislature and 
his people. We thus, for a commercial object, became 
accomplices in Absolutist encroachment. There could 
be no mistake about the matter. The Emperor as- 
sured Cobden that the Legislative Body was irrecon- 
cilably hostile to every manner of Free Trade, and 
Cobden himself says that it would be impossible to 
assemble five hundred persons in France by any process 
of selection, and not find nine-tenths of them, at least, 
in favour of the restrictive system. An apprehension, 
which events too well justified, was felt that Free Trade 
itself would be tainted in the mind of the French people 
by association with the violence done by a high-handed 
stretch of power to national opinion. 

That the good effects even of commercial prosperity 
were neither unlimited nor unmixed, Cobden himself 
had reason to observe. Writing about the rejection of 



248 REMINISCENCES 

Mr. Bright at Manchester, he ascribes ''this display of 
snobbishness and ingratitude " to the great prosperity 
which Lancashire enjoys mainly through the efforts of 
Mr. Bright; and predicts that those vices and the 
political apostasy connected with them will go on in the 
north of England ''so long as the exports continue to 
increase at the same rate." In another letter he says 
"the great prosperity of the country made Tories of us 
all ; " and accuses the middle class, which it was hoped 
could be independent, of having sunk into the most 
abject servility from the same cause. "I have never 
known a manufacturing representative put into a 
cocked-hat and breeches and ruffles, with a sword by his 
side, to make a speech for the Government, without hav- 
ing his head turned by the feathers and frippery ; gen- 
erally they give way to a paroxysm of snobbery, and go 
down on their bellies and throw dust on their heads, and 
fling dirt at the prominent men of their own order." 
Aristocracy here conspired with the vast growth of 
wealth which followed the repeal of the Corn Laws ; 
but it cannot be said that the vast growth of wealth 
had a purely elevating influence in itself. Another 
fact might be cited in support of the same moral, though 
Cobden was himself unconscious of its import. The 
letter of the French Emperor declaring for Free Trade 
appeared upon a Sunday, and on the Tuesday 
following, as Mr. Morley — following, we presume, 
the account given by Cobden — tells us, at the 
great market at Manchester, which used to draw 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 249 

men from all parts of that thriving district, the 
French Emperor was everywhere hailed as the best 
man in Europe. He who had not only destroyed the 
liberties which he was set to guard, but had literally 
revelled in perjury and rioted in innocent blood, who 
was not only the greatest enemy of freedom, but the 
greatest felon in Europe, and who a few years before 
had been denounced by the universal voice of British 
morality, had in a moment, to the bribed understand- 
ings and consciences of all these respectable and reli- 
gious traders, become the best man in Europe because 
he had promised to add something to their gains ! 

It is due, however, to Cobden always to mark that 
he was a Free Trader indeed ; his heart was with those 
who proposed absolutely to abolish all import duties, 
and supply their place, so far as was necessary, by direct 
taxation. His desire and his hope were to make 
one conmiercial conmiunity of the whole human race. 
Thoroughly embracing the principle, he was entitled to 
reckon on the full effects of its application. In this he 
differed essentially from those who, calling themselves 
Free Traders, are in fact nothing of the kind, but merely 
advocates of a particular tariff, very wisely framed no 
doubt with reference to British industries and interests, 
but not necessarily suited to those of all the countries 
in the world. 

Peel I did not know; but I lived very much with 
those who knew him well. I have also had access to 
information of a documentary kind which helps to 



250 REMINISCENCES 

explain some of the doubtful passages of his long and 
vexed career. When he fell from power/ I was still at 
college, and, in common with most of the young Liber- 
als of the day, I looked up with ardent sympathy to the 
great statesman who, trying to rise above party and 
govern in the interest of the nation, was struck down 
by the blind resentment of a selfish faction and by 
the dagger of the political bravo. 

Peel and Cobden, after their long strife and final 
reconcilement, were in a way united in their burials. 
Peel lies, not in Westminster Abbey, but in his home ; 
Cobden lies in a country churchyard. Peel, by his will, 
specially forbade his son to accept a peerage on account 
of his father's services. Cobden was essentially a 
republican. There was a touch of something anti- 
aristocratic, if not . . . ^ 

Peel has been called the greatest Member of Parlia- 
ment who ever lived. A sneer perhaps lurks in the 
compliment; but, apart from the sneer, the compli- 
ment belongs rather to Pym or to one of the Pitts. It 
may more truly be said of Peel that he was about the 
best public servant whom England ever had. No other 
Minister ever was so thoroughly conversant with all 
the interests and master of all the business of the 
State. This it was that lent such weight to his 
speeches, and gave him his immense power over the 
House of Commons. That, so far as the evil system of 
party — for the establishment of which he was not 

[1 June the 27th, 1846.] [" Hiatus in MS.] 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 251 

responsible — would let him, Peel was a true patriot, 
and served his country to the utmost of his power and 
with all his heart, never sparing himself, but giving the 
most conscientious attention to all the details of the 
public business, must be the conviction of every one 
who really knows his history. His great qualities were 
rather those of an administrator than those of a legis- 
lator, and were liable to be rated lower than they de- 
served under the party system, which counts only leg- 
islative triumphs. In legislation he was not an origina- 
tor, at least upon the greatest questions; but, as one 
who gave practical effect to the conclusions of the time, 
his record on the Statute Book is immense. When once 
he put his hand to the work, he was bold, and never 
stopped at half-measures. His bills were framed with 
the greatest care, so as to pass with the least possible 
amendment. For his memorable Budgets, his financial 
experiments, the creation of the fiscal system under 
which England has prospered, he had the assistance of 
first-rate coadjutors, official and non-official; yet the 
measures may fairly be said to have been his own. 
Irrespective of the party ties by which in his very 
boyhood he had been tightly and almost inextricably 
bound, he was by nature a Conservative — ready for 
any practical reform, but averse from organic change. 
Such is apt to be the temperament of great adminis- 
trators, who are satisfied with their tools as they are; 
and it is a better temperament, at all events, than that 
of politicians who seek power through great convul- 



252 REMINISCENCES 

sions and use it for small jobs. The weak points of 
Peel's career are his conversions on Catholic Emanci- 
pation and the Corn Laws, of which nobody denies 
either the sincerity or the necessity, but which involved 
an appearance of infidelity to party ; while the desper- 
ate awkwardness of the position in which, during the 
process of conversion, a leader is placed, between the 
impossibility of keeping silence as a private man whose 
mind was wavering would do, and the danger of pre- 
maturely avowing conclusions which may shake the 
State, has furnished malice with materials for imputa- 
tions of deceitfulness of which unsparing use has been 
made. To these imputations Peel was too nervously 
susceptible ; but we have tried effrontery, and can tell 
which has the best effect on public character. That 
the intellect of the man who was chiefly responsible for 
the welfare of the people should not upon such a ques- 
tion as the Corn Laws have been allowed to act freely 
for the public good, and that the country should have 
been compelled to deprive itself of the services of its 
great administrator because there had been a change in 
national opinion upon an economical question, have 
always seemed to me heavy counts in the indictment 
against the party system, and that constitutional rule 
which requires that, whenever a new light breaks upon 
the mind of the legislative body, the executive Govern- 
ment shall be overturned. 

Factious things must, in the course of nature, be 
done by every leader of opposition ; but no leader of 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 253 

opposition ever did fewer of them than Peel. He never 
weakened or degraded Government, He played no 
jockey tricks. He never descended to the tactics 
familiar to those who supplanted him, of coalescing with 
the extreme section of the other party for the purpose 
of upsetting the Ministry. He would have spurned 
such a suggestion as the utter betrayal of all the ob- 
jects for which his party existed, as the depth at once 
of folly and dishonour. Never did he give his followers 
the signal to turn round and vote against the second 
reading of a bill when they had voted in favour of the 
first reading because it appeared that advantage might 
be taken of a division in the ranks of the Government. 
Never did he on a great measure belie his recorded con- 
victions and trifle with the political life of the nation 
for the purpose of ''dishing" his rivals. He avoided 
rather than sought faction fights ; held back his follow- 
ers as much as he could from premature attacks ; never 
attempted to filch office, but waited till his time was 
fully come, and, instead of climbing over the wall, he 
could enter by the great gate. In time of public peril 
he knew that party feeling and personal ambition must 
be restrained. 

A man of genius Peel cannot be called. He was not 
imaginative or creative ; even in appreciation his mind, 
open as it was, moved slowly. It moved slowly in all 
things; and, like Burghley,^ he used his pen a good deal 
in the process of deliberation. Nor did he always see 

P Queen Elizabeth's great Chief Minister. 1520-1598.] 



254 REMINISCENCES 

the limits of a principle; if he had, perhaps he would 
have perceived more clearly and maintained more firmly 
that the principle of free competition, however sound as 
applied to commerce in general, was hardly sound when 
applied to national works like railways. Still, in the 
construction of the Conservative party, and in placing 
it exactly on the right basis after the great change of 
1832, his practical sagacity did the work of genius. 
His moderation in resistance lent no pretext for violence 
to the progressists, and perhaps perverted ^ revolution. 
He was greatly helped in this by his commercial origin 
and his affinity to the middle class. The same influ- 
ences were always drawing him towards alliance with 
such a man as Cobden, wide as the gulf between them 
might appear. 

In one respect he stands almost by himself. It 
would be difficult at least to name any leader who had 
left the country such a bequest of statesmen. In 
drawing young men to him he had to get over the diffi- 
culties of his extreme shyness, and of a manner at first 
icy, though Lord Aberdeen said of him that when he 
did open himself he was the most confiding of mankind. 
He had also to get over a certain formality of judgment 
and want of sympathy with anj^hing eccentric or 
sentimental, natural to him, no doubt, but confirmed 
by the habits of a life spent in business of State, with 
little time for reading, intellectual intercourse, or specu- 
lation of any kind. From the personal jealousy which 

P Query. — Prevented ? or averted ?] 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 255 

sometimes narrows the choice of associates he was free, 
as he showed by the eagerness with which he welcomed 
to his side Stanley/ in whose unquiet ambition and aris- 
tocratic arrogance his sagacity could hardly fail to see 
the probable source of trouble to himself. The shade 
of Peel may proudly ask what those who charged him 
with want of sympathy with genius have left to eclipse 
his staff. In one instance he has been accused — and 
will, no doubt, be accused again — of a fatal oversight. 
But the accusers must remember that the Disraeli of 
1841 was not the Lord Beaconsfield of a later time. 
The Disraeli of 1841 had announced himself under the 
name of Vivian Grey as an unscrupulous adventurer, 
bent on gratifying his ambition, not by the qualities 
which Peel valued in a public servant, but by skill in 
intrigue ; he had verified that announcement by seeking 
election to Parliament, first as a Radical, and immedi- 
ately afterwards as a Tory ; and he had been denounced 
for so doing by public men whose confidence and whose 
names he had, as they thought, abused. He had sig- 
nified the intention which, in the case of Lord Derby, 
he, with incomparable skill and knowledge of character, 
carried into effect, of using his political leader as a 
Marquis of Carabas.^ He had presented himself to the 
House of Commons in raiment which, though symboli- 
cal by its gorgeousness of a dazzling policy, was not 

[1 Afterwards fourteenth Earl of Derby. He was Colonial Sec- 
retary under Peel from 1841 to 1844.] 

p The Marquis of Carabas in Disraeli's "Vivian Grey" is, I 
believe, intended for the Marquis of Clanriearde.] 



256 REMINISCENCES 

likely to fascinate an unimaginative man of sense. He 
had approached his leader, both in public and in private, 
with fulsome flattery; and fulsome flattery, however 
successful it might be in other quarters, was not likely 
to succeed with Peel. Nor was anything to be gained by 
disparaging the Duke of Wellington, in whom Peel did 
not see a rival, and whom, though little guided by his 
counsels, he always treated with the tenderest respect. 
After all, there is a tradition that Peel — always toler- 
ant, though not appreciative, of the vagaries of talent, 
and ever anxious to enlist it for the party — wished to 
give Disraeli place, but was prevented by the opposition 
of Lord Stanley. When his papers are published, it will 
be found, I suspect, that he afterwards treated Disraeli 
with a magnanimity which may be thought by some to 
have been rather magnanimous in him than clearly 
consistent with the public good.^ 

To do right in the question between Cobden and Peel 
while they were in collision, we must remember that 
Cobden was leading an agitation in the interest of a 
particular class. The class was large, and its interest 
on this occasion coincided with that of the community, 
otherwise it could not have had Cobden and Bright for 
spokesmen ; but still it was a class. With Cobden and 
Bright the repeal of the Corn Law was part of a general 
policy of Free Trade, and Free Trade itself was but a 
part of a still more general policy of peace and good-will 

[1 This was written before the publication of Volumes II and III 
of Charles Stuart Parker's Life of Peel. These appeared in 1899.] 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 257 

among nations, economy, and government in the inter- 
est of the people. But the object of most of the manu- 
facturers who were members of the League was simply 
the repeal of a noxious impost, which specially pressed 
on their own industry. They were not universal philan- 
thropists; they were hardly even Free Traders in the 
full sense of the term. Their subscriptions to the 
League Fund were what Cobden himself called them, in- 
vestments, which they expected to be repaid to them, 
and which were in fact repaid to them a hundred fold. 
Had the same men been landowners, they would prob- 
ably have been Protectionists. To the general policy of 
Bright and Cobden their attachment was very equivo- 
cal, as the sequel showed, and as Cobden himself has 
told us : — 

''I am of opinion that we have not the same elements 
in Lancashire for a Democratic Reform movement as 
we had for Free Trade. To me the most discouraging 
fact in our political state is the condition of the Lan- 
cashire boroughs, where, with the exception of Man- 
chester, nearly all the municipalities are in the hands of 
the stupidest Tories in England, and where we can 
hardly see our way for an equal half-share of Liberal 
representation. We have the labour of Hercules in 
hand to abate the power of the aristocracy, and their 
allies the snobs of the towns. 

''You hint at the possibility of Manchester taking me 
in case of poor Potter's ^ death. I don't think the offer 
will ever be made, but I am quite sure that there is no 

[^ Thomas Bayley Potter, politician ; founder of the Cobden 
Club. 1817-1898.1 



258 REMINISCENCES 

demonstration of the kind that could induce me (apart 
from my determination not at present to stand for any 
place) to put myself in the hands of the people who, 
without more cause then than now, struck down men 
whose politics are identically my own. To confess my 
honest belief, I regard the Manchester constituency, 
now that their gross pocket question is settled, as a very 
unsound, and to us a very unsafe body. 

''The manufacturers of Yorkshire and Lancashire 
look upon India and China as a field of enterprise, which 
can only be kept open to them by force ; and, indeed, 
they are willing apparently to be at all the cost of hold- 
ing open the door of the whole of Asia for the rest of 
the world to trade on the same terms as themselves. 
How few of those who fought for the repeal of the Corn 
Law really understand the full meaning of Free Trade 
principles ! " 

Men may be named, besides Cobden and Bright, who 
did thoroughly understand the meaning of the principle, 
and its connection with principles larger still ; but with 
the rank and file of the movement Free Trade meant 
nothing but an alteration of the tariff in their own 
favour. 

Peel, on the other hand, was the ruler of the whole 
nation, and was bound to consider not one class or in- 
terest alone, but all. He was also bound to consider 
political as well as economical consequences. The 
aristocracy personally he loved little, and had little 
cause to love ; it accepted his services without ever for- 
getting that he was by origin a cotton-spinner; and 
that he stood aloof from it in heart was shown by his 
testamentary injunction to his son. But he believed 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 259 

it to be an essential part of the Constitution, and he saw 
plainly that its basis was territorial, or, in plain English, 
that its influence depended on its rents. It was very 
well for the League to say that the landowners would 
not suffer by repeal ; the League cared little whether the 
landowners suffered or not, and the truth is that though 
the reduction of rents was suspended for a time by the 
enormous extension of the English market for agricul- 
tural produce which followed the growth of manufac- 
tures, it has evidently come at last, and seems likely to 
bring its political consequences with it. The predic- 
tion of evil to the landed interest, which events appeared 
to have belied, has been apparently fulfilled after all; 
for some time past, at least, the extent of English land 
under the plough has been rapidly decreasing. There 
was some force also in the military argument against 
dependence on the foreigner for food; it seemed that 
the Island Fortress would lose its impregnability ; and 
Peel could not accept, and would have been entirely 
misled if he had accepted, as infallibly true the Leaguers' 
assurance that Free Trade would be followed by uni- 
versal peace. Economical fallacies, which experience 
has now taught us to deride, then fettered strong minds ; 
nor would a statesman, when he began to meditate the 
great change, have felt that he had any great force of 
independent opinion on his side. The sudden conver- 
sion of the Whigs, was, as Mr. Morley truly says, nothing 
more than the device of a foundering faction. So long 
as they had a secure tenure of power, and were able to 



260 REMINISCENCES 

control legislation,they declared that to meddle with the 
Corn Law would be madness. They even, after the 
failure of their attempt 'Ho set fire to the house which 
they were leaving," showed rather faint attachment to 
their new opinions, and their chiefs declined to vote for 
for Mr. Villiers's ^ annual motion ^ in 1844. Peel had, 
however, avowed in the most distinct terms that unless 
the Corn Law was shown to be good for the whole people 
it could not stand; and his freedom in dealing with it 
had already driven extreme Protectionists, such as the 
Duke of Buckingham, from his side. The general ten- 
dency of his financial policy was also distinctly in the 
direction of Free Trade. For a man in his position, and 
under the party system, the process of change, as has 
been already said, was desperately difficult, and the 
utmost allowance ought to be made for anything am- 
biguous in his utterances or in his conduct. He was 
the object not only of cruel misconstruction, but of ca- 
lumnious invention on the part of enemies who certainly 
could not like him be accused of lacking imagination. 
It was most circumstantially stated and widely believed, 
that when he found himself no longer able to defend the 
Corn Law he had contrived to shirk a debate, and to 
put forward his young lieutenant, Sidney Herbert, to 
defend the Corn Law in his place. He was of all men 
the least capable of such an act of treachery to a friend. 

[1 Charles Pelham Villiers, statesman ; M.P. for Wolverhamp- 
ton from 1835 till 1898 ; held many high posts. 1802-1898.] 

[2 For the repeal of the Corn Law. He brought it in annually 
from 1838 till its abolition in 1846.] 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 261 

Mr. Morley gives what is probably the grain of truth in 
the story, if there is any grain of truth in it at all. He 
says that after a powerful speech from Cobden, Peel 
was overheard to say to Sidney Herbert, ''You must 
answer that, for I cannot." Whatever construction 
may be put upon the incident, it clearly involves nothing 
dishonourable on the part of Peel. 

When a class in possession of power, as the landlord 
class was in the Parliament of those days, refuses jus- 
tice to the community, agitation is the only remedy, and 
it is better than civil war. But it entails some of the 
moral evils of civil war. What says Cobden himself? — 

''You must not judge me by what I say at these 
tumultuous public meetings. I constantly regret the 
necessity of violating good taste and kind feeling in my 
public harangues. I say advisedly necessity ; for I defy 
anybody to keep the ear of the public for seven years 
upon any one question without striving to amuse as 
well as instruct. People do not attend public meetings 
to be taught, but to be excited, flattered, and pleased. 
If they are simply lectured, they may sit out the lesson 
for once, but they will not come again ; and as I have 
required them again and again, I have been obliged 
to amuse them, not by standing on my head or eating 
fire, but by kindred feats of jugglery, such as appeals 
to their self-esteem, their combativeness, or their hu- 
mour. You know how easily in touching their feel- 
ings one degenerates into flattery, vindictiveness, or 
grossness." 

It would be a relief to him, he says, to know that he 
should never again have to attend a public meeting. 



262 REMINISCENCES 

If this was true of Cobden, how much more must it have 
been true of common agitators ! The passions of those 
whose interest was threatened were of course inflamed to 
fury by the wordy cannonade, and the difficulty of 
Peel's task in bringing them round was increased ten- 
fold. After all, as Cobden admits, the agitation would 
have failed had it not been for the Irish famine. 

It was perhaps inevitable that the leaders of the 
League should be unjust to Peel, as well as wanting in 
that consideration for his position which wisdom bade 
them show if they wished to win him to their side. 
Unjust, however, they were. They refused to recognize 
what he had done and was doing for the gradual pro- 
motion of the general policy of Free Trade; they 
treated with contempt his great budget of 1842, though 
as a step in economical progress it was second in im- 
portance only to the repeal of the Corn Law itself ; and 
they persisted in fixing on him, who least of all men in 
power deserved it, the entire responsibility and odium 
of maintaining a system which was paralyzing trade and 
spreading distress among the people. Hence arose a 
personal quarrel between him and Cobden, of which it 
would be painful to speak if it had not been closed by 
a noble reconciliation. On the fifth night of a fierce 
debate in the House of Commons, when party passions 
were at fever heat, Cobden made a very bitter attack 
on Peel, accusing him of '^ folly or ignorance " as a 
financier, treating his fiscal legislation with the most 
cutting contempt, and pointing to him, with emphatic 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 263 

and passionate reiteration, as '^individually respon- 
sible " for the lamentable and dangerous state of the 
country. The recent murder of Peel's secretary and 
friend, Mr. Drummond,^ by a bullet, which was supposed 
to have been intended for Peel himself, was in every- 
body's mind; and when Peel in his reply pounced 
angrily on the expression '' individually responsible," 
Protectionist hatred of the great Leaguer burst forth in 
a fierce shout of denunciation, and a tornado followed 
in which Peel's anger mounted still higher, all moral 
bearings were lost and all attempts at explanation be- 
came fruitless. Peel afterwards positively disclaimed 
the atrocious meaning which had been fixed, in the fury 
of the moment, on his words ; and he surely might be 
pardoned, especially when heated by debate, for fiercely 
resenting an attempt to hold him up individually to a 
people exasperated by suffering as the author of their 
misery. Cobden himself avows that he meant to 
frighten Peel; he had made up his mind that ''when 
Peel bolted or betrayed the Protectionists the game 
would be up." "It was this conviction," he says, 
"which induced me after some deliberation to throw 
the responsibility upon Peel ; and he is not only alarmed 
at it, but indiscreet enough to let everybody know that 
he is so." Surely this goes far to justify anything that 
Peel really said. 

Mr. Morley quotes, as the best judgment that can be 
passed on the affair, a letter written immediately after 

P Edward Drummond. 1792-1843.] 



264 REMINISCENCES 

it by Cobden, in which Peel is accused of hypocritically 
feigning emotion, and said to have incurred ridicule as 
a coward. ^'Ah! vousgdtezle! Soyonsamis!" cried 
somebody from the pit, when Augustus in '' Cinna " ^ was 
recounting the vices and crimes of the man whose hand 
he was about to take. For the charge of simulating 
emotion Mr. Morley is of course able to cite the author- 
ity of Disraeli. Yet nobody who knows Peel's history 
can doubt that, like other members of his family, he had 
a hot temper, though it was usually under strict con- 
trol. It is impossible to suppose that he was '' acting 
the part of the choleric gentleman" in the tempestuous 
scene which occurred when Parliament was dissolved 
upon the rejection of the Reform Bill. As little was he 
open to the imputation of cowardice ; he was sensitive 
to pain; all men of fine organization are; and there 
are traces in his correspondence of his having been 
rather nervous, or of somebody having been nervous 
for him, about plots ; but I believe I am right in saying 
that, besides his affair with O'Connell, whom he des- 
perately strove to drag into the field, he on three other 
occasions displayed his anachronistic propensity to 
fight duels. I know that it was with the utmost diffi- 
culty that, by an appeal to his feeling for the Queen, 
he was dissuaded from sending a challenge to Lord 
George Bentinck, who had touched his honour on a 
point on which it was particularly sensitive, by traduc- 
ing the integrity of his relations with his friends. It 

[1 Corneille's tragedy.] 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 265 

may be surmised that his equivocal position in the 
society of those days as a cotton-spinner among aristo- 
crats made him rather more peppery in resenting insult 
than he would otherwise have been. What is certain 
is that, if readiness to look on the muzzle of a pistol 
is a proof of courage, Peel cannot have been a 
coward. 

All soon came right between him and Cobden. The 
two soldiers of the same cause, under opposite stand- 
ards and in hostile uniforms, recognized each other and 
clasped hands. Cobden wrote Peel, whose defeat by 
the coalition of Whigs and Protectionists on the Coer- 
cion Bill was then impending, a confidential letter prom- 
ising him hearty support, conjuring him to dissolve Par- 
liament, and assuring him, if he would, of an immense 
victory. He desired Peel to burn the letter. Peel kept 
it, and, as Mr. Morley says, a question may be raised 
by those who occupy themselves about minor morals. 
But Peel in his answer says, ''I need not give you as- 
surance that I shall regard your letter as a communi- 
cation more purely confidential than if it had been 
written to me by some person united to me by the closest 
bonds of private friendship." That is to say, '' I have 
not burned the letter, but I will keep it a dead secret ; " 
and in this Cobden tacitly acquiesced. Peel must have 
known very well that the letter would be eminently 
honourable to the memory of both of them, and espe- 
cially to that of the writer, who thus buried in a moment 
all past enmities, forgot all selfish rivalries, and threw 



266 REMINISCENCES 

himself into the arms of the statesman who had brought 
in the repeal of the Corn Law. 

Had Peel taken Cobden's advice and dissolved, no 
doubt Cobden's prediction would have been fulfilled. 
There would have been a total rout of the Protectionists, 
and among others, the Member for Shrewsbury^ would 
have lost his seat. But Peel could not, without a 
scandalous disregard of old ties, have appealed to the 
country against his own party. Nor could he have 
vaulted at once from the leadership of the Conservatives 
to the leadership of the Liberals, which was what Cob- 
den in effect proposed. It is, in short, difficult to see 
how he could have done anything but what he did. 
Those who, like the author of the ''Life of Lord George 
Bentinck,"^ accuse him of ''astuteness," and of ma- 
noeuvring for the retention of his place, are met by the 
fact that, on finding his Cabinet divided, he resigned, 
and that Lord John Russell was prevented from forming 
a Government only by an objection among his own 
friends to the appointment of Palmerston as Foreign 
Minister, which no astuteness in Peel could have fore- 
seen, much less have contrived.* It has been plausibly 
urged, and the writer of this paper used to think, that 
Peel ought to have held a meeting of his party: if he 
was prevented from taking that course in any degree 

P Benjamin Disraeli.] 

* The author of the "Life of Lord George Bentinck" calls this 
an intrigue. Everybody was an intriguer but he. The objector 
was about the most inflexibly upright and thoroughly straight- 
forward of public men. [Note by the author.] 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 267 

by want of frankness and moral courage, or even by a 
punctilious tenacity of his own authority as Minister, 
to that extent he did wrong; but it was certain that 
there would be a disagreement at the meeting, probable 
that there would be a scene of great violence. What 
Stanley,^ Disraeli, and their section wanted above all 
things was to produce a split; and the consequence 
would have been that the quarrel in the House would 
only have been made more desperate and scandalous. 
The result, however, was inevitable, nor was it other- 
wise than welcome to Peel, who was careworn, exhausted, 
ill in body, and deeply wounded by the quarrel with old 
friends. He fell from office, but not from power: he 
remained the leading man in England; and had not 
his life been accidentally cut short, the voice of the 
nation would almost certainly have recalled him to the 
helm. 

Peel's failure to make his party turn round with him 
in 1846 has been, contrasted with the success of the Tory 
leaders in 1867. But Mr. Morley aptly replies that the 
second was a case of political principle, while the first 
was a case of pocket. Besides this, in 1867 expedients 
were used which were quite unknown to Peel; the 
Tories were not so much persuaded as decoyed ; a Min- 
ister put up to say that the House of Commons would 
never grant household suffrage, and the pitfall in which 
that revolutionary measure lurked was carefully covered 

[ * Afterwards fourteenth Earl of Derby. He was Lord Stanley 
of Biekerstaffe at tliis period of his career.] 



268 REMINISCENCES 

with Personal Payment of Rates. What is still more 
important, between 1846 and 1867 the party had under- 
gone a most effective process of education. 

Still, there is a moral to be drawn. The one man in 
whom the nation trusted, and had reason to trust, was 
driven from power because he had carried a measure 
which was urgently needed to give the people bread, 
and which was soon to be ratified by universal approba- 
tion, even those who had most rancorously assailed its 
author at the time acquiescing as soon as acquiescence 
became necessary to them as a passport to place. The 
coalition against the Coercion Bill,^ by which this was 
brought about, consisted of three elements; Conserva- 
tives who had themselves supported the Coercion Bill in 
its earlier stage ; Whigs to whom coercion was familiar, 
and who, as soon as they had tripped up Peel, resorted 
to it again; and Radicals who were then, as they are 
now, unused to government, hardly conscious of its 
necessities, unready to avow Republicanism, but ready 
to make unlimited concessions to all who demanded 
them, and let Irish insurgents, or any one who would, 
tear to pieces the heritage of the commonwealth. The 
one great gainer by the transaction was a man whose 
motives were purely personal, as he used afterwards 
very frankly to avow ; who, on a question affecting not 
a mere political theory, but the subsistence of the people 
who were starving round him, was taking a course con- 
trary to his often recorded convictions, and traducing 

[1 Introduced in June, 1846.] 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 269 

with laborious virulence the character and career of a 
statesman whom he knew to be doing right, on whom 
a little time before he had been lavishing his adulation, 
and to whom he had been a suitor for place. The pro- 
gressive domination of such characters is the inherent 
tendency of the party system. 

In spite of their conflicts, Peel and Cobden were really 
united in their political lives, and it may be said that in 
death they were not divided. Neither of them was 
buried in Westminster Abbey. Peel lies among his 
family and neighbours, Cobden lies in a country church- 
yard. A man who had worked for fame will like to rest 
in a pantheon ; a man who has worked for duty and for 
the approbation of the power of duty will perhaps pre- 
fer to rest by the side of honest labour, and among those 
whom he has loved. 

Free Trade still stands pretty much where it stood 
on the morrow of the reconciliation of Cobden with Peel. 
Their visions — Cobden's visions at least — have not 
been fulfilled. The reason has been already given. 
England, while she preaches Free Trade, and thinks 
all the world demented because it will not listen to her 
preaching, is herself not a Free Trade nation. She 
raises many millions by import duties, which, though 
admirably well adjusted to her special circumstances, 
are not the less interferences with freedom of trade. 
Every nation has its tariff, every nation will continue 
to have its tariff so long as money for establishments 
and armaments is required : and for tariffs, as was said 



270 REMINISCENCES 

before, there is no absolute rule ; each country must be 
allowed to frame its own. Cobden assumed that the 
world was a single community; he could not bring the 
human race to that far-off goal of philanthropy, though 
he did something to help it on its way. 

It seems at the present moment ^ as if the same thing 
might be said with too much truth about the Irish 
Question. It was upon a Coercion Bill that the Peel 
Government fell, Cobden voting against the Bill, 
though apparently more because this was the regular 
line of his political section than in obedience to any 
strong opinion of his own. His biographer's hostility 
to such measures is more decided. "The Ministry," he 
says, ''resorted for the eighteenth time since the Union 
to the stale device of a Coercion Bill, that stereotyped 
avowal — and always made, strange to say, without 
shame or contrition — of the secular neglect and incom- 
petency of the English government of Ireland."^ Sir 
Robert Peel was not incompetent, nor had he neglected 
the Irish Question ; on the contrary, he had studied it 
for thirty years with all the advantages which a suc- 
cessive tenure of the Irish Secretaryship, the Home 
Secretaryship, and the Premiership could afford, and 
with an anxiety proportioned to his consciousness that, 
as he said, Ireland was the difficulty of his administra- 
tion. We must therefore be permitted to believe 

[1 Written about 1888. — The Irish Crimes Bill (a measure of 
coercion) was introduced in March, 1887.] 

[^ Morley's "Life of Richard Cobden," vol. i, p. 360. London : 
1881.1 



BRIGHT AND COBDEN 271 

that the temporary reinforcement of pubHc justice in 
Ireland during outbreaks of murderous anarchy caused 
by agitation or distress, and when the ordinary law has 
become evidently insufficient, though it may not be the 
highest pinnacle of statesmanship, is not the lowest 
depth of ignorance, carelessness, or folly. That force, 
while necessarily used to restrain disorder, is no remedy 
for an economical mklady, is a truth as certain and as 
fruitful as that the strait-waistcoat, necessarily used to 
control madness in its paroxysms, is no remedy for a 
disease of the lungs. 



CHAPTER XV 

OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 
1858-1866 

Settling at Oxford — Telepathy — Halford Vaughan — Henry 
Smith — Max Miiller — Monier- Williams — Thorold Rogers — 
RoUeston — Waring — Coxe — Froude — Cradock — The Great 
Western Railway — Bang Edward VII — Prince Leopold — 
Dr. Acland — Gladstone. 

In 1858 I was appointed Regius Professor of Modern 
History at Oxford. This ended my connection with 
the Saturday Review. The position, while it was wholly 
unsolicited, was the height of my desire. I thought 
with pleasure that I was settled in it for life. On the 
North of the ''Parks " I built me a little house which I 
called Parks End, and which afterwards had the honour 
of being occupied by Max Miiller ^ and after him by 
Professor Osier. ^ I planted my little garden. I laid 
out my little croquet ground, which in summer evenings 
was the scene of pleasant little croquet parties followed 
by pleasant little suppers. The subject of my Profes- 
sorship was the one for which my lamp had very often 
been lighted long before sunrise. The future smiled. 

Mortimer was within easy reach by rail, I could go 

P See infra, page 276.] 

p Regius Professor of Medicine ; Honorary Professor of Medi- 
cine of Johns Hopkins University. Born at Bond Head, Canada, 
in 1849.] 

272 




Photograph of a Bust of Goldwin Smith 

Made at Oxford about 1S66, by Alexander Munro. 



OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 273 

there now and then for a day with the South Berks 
hounds. On one of my visits there happened a curious 
thing, which may interest the Telepathists. At some 
distance from my father's house I was seized with faint- 
ness, to which I was hable. After lying some time on 
the common I got water at a cottage and reached home. 
There I found at the very moment of my faintness a 
telegram had been received from my housekeeper at 
Oxford asking whether it was true that I had died sud- 
denly. It was another member of the University of 
the same name. The telegram would have been docu- 
mentary evidence; which in these cases is generally 
wanting. Coincidence would as usual have been aided 
by the working of the retroactive imagination. A story 
was told by Sir Harry Burrard Neale ^ one of the Bur- 
rard family with which mine was intimate and I believe 
was remotely connected.^ An old couple in Scotland, 
Cameron, I think, was the name, left their home to seek 
for their only son who had been carried off by a press- 
gang. They wandered to Lymington on the Solent. 
There a kind boatman took them on board his boat 
bound for Portsmouth, where they would find the men- 
of-war. A storm came on, and the boat was in danger. 
Sir Harry Burrard Neale was coming up the Solent in 
his ship, the San Firenze. He saw the boat in danger, 
hove to, took the old people on board, and asked them 

[1 Second Baronet, Admiral. 1765-1840.] 

[2 Goldwin Smith's mother's aunt, Mrs. Goldwin, had a sister 
named Mrs. Coppell. Mrs. Coppell's daughter married a Mr. 
Burrard.] 



274 REMINISCENCES 

what they were doing at sea in such weather. They 
told him that they were seeking for their son, whose 
name they gave. ''There is a pressed man of that 
name," he said, ''on board this ship; send him up." 
He was their son. To this, which is certainly fact, but 
not less certainly mere coincidence, the retroactive im- 
agination of the two old people would probably lend 
miraculous colours. 

It was seldom that we, or anybody, went from 
home. But my Mother and I stayed with Sir George 
Burrard, rector of Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight. ^ 
The Burrard family before the Reform Bill had been 
patrons of the borough of Lymington, which sent two 
members to Parliament, and Sir George held three 
livings, two of which he served by Curates. He was 
a kindly and noble-looking old gentlemen, with knee 
breeches and powdered hair. In those days was to 
be seen at Spithead a sight of beauty and grandeur 
which will never be seen again; that of the great 
sailing men-of-war. 

My predecessor in the Chair was Halford Vaughan,^ 
whose history was one of genius, mournfully, almost 
tragically, thrown away. As a student he had shown 

["^ I went with my two Boys to visit my Brothers at Southamp- 
ton and Land's End, and also to stay with Mr. Burrard at Yar- 
mouth, April 15th, [1828]." — Extract from Goldwin Smith's 
mother's Diary. — Goldwin Smith's mother paid another visit 
to Yarmouth in July of the year 1833. Her little son, Goldwin, 
who was then ten years old, accompanied her on that occasion 
also.] 

p Henry Halford Vaughan. 1811-1885.] 



OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 275 

powers of mind far beyond those of ordinary prizemen. 
By his father, who was a Judge, he had been destined 
for the Bar ; but his heart was devoted to Philosophy. 
It was said that the Judge gave him as an exercise a case 
on which to write a judgment, and on reading the judg- 
ment wept to think what a lawyer was going to be lost. 
Vaughan's lectures on the Norman Conquest were ad- 
mirable and were very well attended. But. he took it 
into his head that regular lecturing was intellectual 
slavery, not to be endured ; he resigned his chair ; was 
reinstalled by the efforts of friends; and again re- 
signed. He had written a work on moral philosophy 
which was understood to be highly original and of 
which great expectations were formed; but again and 
again when his work was on the point of publication 
some strange accident occurred, or he fancied that it 
had occurred, and the book never saw light. There 
can be little doubt that Vaughan in the end became 
hypochondriac. His last years were passed in retire- 
ment. His lectures were never published, and the only 
fruit of his genius ever given to the world was a not 
very valuable set of critical notes on Shakespeare. 

Society for any one of my class and pursuits could 
hardly be more pleasant than it was at Oxford in those 
days. The Professors of different subjects, with the 
resident Tutors and Fellows of Colleges, formed a circle 
with various lines and interests, moderate incomes, so- 
cially and hospitably disposed. Hospitality, easy and 
frugal, College kitchens and Conamon Rooms supplied. 



276 REMINISCENCES 

At the little dinner parties talk was rational yet bright 
and merry. The old academic rust had departed. 
Oxford was now within an hour and a half of London, 
and perfectly in the world. 

The most eminent of the group was Henry Smith/ 
Professor of Mathematics, and, but for his early death, 
good judges thought a Newton or a La Place. He was 
generally cultivated, and sparkled with wit. One of 
our Professors who was weak in his aspirates voted at an 
election, at which Gladstone and Hardy ^ were the can- 
didates, and meaning to vote for Gladstone, in his ner- 
vous haste said '' 'ardy." Trying to correct himself, he 
said that he had not finished pronouncing the name. 
''He has not begun to pronounce it," said Henry Smith, 
who was sitting as scrutineer. As mathematical profes- 
sor Henry Smith noted a falling off in the brain power 
of his students which he was inclined to ascribe to smok- 
ing. At Magdalen when I was there nobody smoked. 
One of the Dons still took snufT. 

Another notability was Max Miiller ^ on whose philo- 
logical glories it is needless to dwell. He ought by 
rights to have been Professor of Sanskrit. But in 
rejecting him in favour of Monier-Williams * the Univer- 

[1 Henry Jolin Stephen Smith. 1826-1883.] 

P Gathorne Hardy.] 

P The Right Honourable Friedrich Max Miiller, Professor of 
Modern Languages and afterwards of Comparative Philology. 
Born at Dessau in 1823 ; died in 1900.] 

P Sir Monier Monier-Williams, K.C.I.E., D.C.L., LL.D., Fellow 
of Balliol, 1882-1888 ; Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, 1860-1899. 
Born in 1819; died April 11, 1899.] 



OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 277 

sity was not so far guilty of bigotry or nativism as Dean 
Stanley and other angry friends of Max Miiller sup- 
posed. The professorship was a very recent foundation, 
and the object of the founder had unquestionably been 
religious. He thought that Sanskrit, as a key to the 
early mythology of the Hindoos, would be a help to the 
missionary. There could be no doubt that he would 
have preferred the orthodox Anglican to the German 
freethinker. 

Thorold Rogers,^ the Professor of Political Economy, 
was and looked a son of thunder. He was a strenuous 
worker and really great in his line, though not perfectly 
judicial. Perfectly judicial he could hardly be, as he 
was in politics a strong Radical. He sat in Parliament 
for Southwark.^ On the hustings he said, as candi- 
dates always do, that the electors would certainly return 
him. ''They'll see you in hell first," cried a voice in 
the crowd. ''My dear Sir," replied Rogers, "if that mis- 
fortune does befall me, you certainly will be there to see 
it." Rogers was also a writer of satires. Of the two 
great allies, my successors in the Chair, he said, 

"So, ladling flattery from their several tubs, 
Stubbs butters Freeman, Freeman butters Stubbs." 

To which the persons satirized raised the totally irrele- 
vant objection that it was untrue. 

My special friend was Dr. Rolleston,^ Professor of 

[1 See Chapter V, page 84.] 
[- Also for Bermondsey.] 

P George RoUeston, F.R.S., F.L.S. ; Fellow of Merton. 1829- 
1881.1 



278 REMINISCENCES 

Physiology. When overwork laid him in an early 
grave, I was allowed to put up his portrait in the Com- 
mon Room of his College. But no portrait could do 
justice to his enthusiasm in scientific research, his 
energy, his buoyancy, his humour, the life which he 
brought into our social circle. I wrote under the por- 
trait, — 

Sic indefessum facie spirante vigorem, 

Veri enitebar mente aperire viam; 
Quum vitae et vultus nimio lux victa labore est, 

Et vestra abrepta est gloria magna domo. 

Wilson,^ Professor of Moral Philosophy, afterwards Presi- 
dent of Corpus, was full of pleasant wit. So was Mark 
Pattison, when he was in good humour and at his best. 
I could give a string of names well remembered by me 
who am now about the last of the circle. Mentem 
mortalia tangunt. 

A wonder, though known to few, was George War- 
ing,^ the most universally learned man of all my ac- 
quaintance. He had graduated late at what was then 
Magdalen Hall, now Hertford College. He was mar- 
ried, settled at Oxford, holding no academical office, 
but feeding his ravenous hunger of knowledge. One 
eye he had lost, the other was weak so that he had to 
hold his book close to it. The whole of every day he 
spent in the Bodleian Library. It would have been 
hard to say with what subject, saving physical science, 
he was not well acquainted. Yet he left no work, nor 

[1 John Mattliias Wilson. 1814-1881.] 

P Second son of Henry Waring, of Hereford. Born 1807.] 



OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 279 

any trace of himself except in the way of occasional aid 
to other students. The University was near giving a 
large price for what pretended to be a Samaritan manu- 
script. The Professor of the department was taken in, 
but Waring detected the imposture. 

Waring reminds me of '^Bodley " Coxe/ the prince of 
librarians, and soul of the social circle. Pattison used 
to say that the librarian who read was lost. I think 
Coxe had read, but at all events he had great knowledge 
of manuscripts. An impostor tendered the library a 
manuscript pretending to the highest antiquity. The 
curators referred it to Coxe. At the subsequent meet- 
ing, the vendor of the manuscript being present, Coxe 
was asked what he considered to be its date. He 
quickly replied, 'T should say about the middle of the 
nineteenth century." 

There were still some relics of the Oxford before the 
flood of reform; among them ''Mo" Griffith^ of Mer- 
on, and Frowd,^ of Corpus. Each was slightly non 
compos. Frowd, a Fellow of Corpus, was annoyed at 
the trampling of grass under his window. He set a 
man-trap, and watching for the result, presently heard 
a scream, rushed down and found he had caught the 
Professor of Moral Philosophy. By way of penance, he 
condemned himself to attendance on the Professor's 
lectures for the rest of the term. Lodging in London 



P Henry Octavius Coxe, Bodley's librarian, I860.] 
P (Edward) Moses Griffith. 1767-1859.] 
P John Brickenden Frowd. 1778-1865.] 



280 REMINISCENCES 

when a contested election at Oxford was coming on, he 
wrote letters to a number of people in the county pro- 
posing to pair. Before their answers had time to come 
in, he ran down himself to Oxford and voted. His plea 
was that he had not received from any of the people to 
whom he had written their consent to pair. There was 
an uproar, of course, but the plea of insanity was entered 
and accepted. 

A remarkably pleasant house was that of Edward 
Hartopp Cradock,^ the Principal of Brasenose. Mrs. 
Cradock (she was a Russell) had been a Maid of Hon- 
our. She was very bright, full of anecdote and fun. 
There we had the genuine Afternoon Tea, a meeting of 
a few people for real enjoyment, with talk, music, and 
reading aloud; far different from the social battue of 
people crowded into a house in which there is hardly 
room for them to stand, and talking against a hubbub, 
into which the Afternoon Tea has now grown. 

It chanced that I had to do a little fighting for the 
University. Oxford city, which did not fully appre- 
ciate its advantages and honours as the seat of a great 
University, wanted to bring the Great Western Railway 
works to Oxford, where, besides the outrage to the 
genius of the place, building-land could ill have been 
spared. The University shuddered, but feared to 
move, having discredited itself by foolishly using its 
influence to turn away the line of the Great Western 

[1 The third son of Edward Grove, of Shenston, Staffordshire. — 
He changed his name. Died in 1886.] 



OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 281 

Railway. I wrote to the Times. The Times backed 
my letter. One of the Directors of the railway wrote 
to me, saying that he was heartily with me and that if 
I would fight outside the Board he would fight inside. 
I did fight, got society on my side, and, with the help of 
my friend in the other camp, won. The city, which had 
expected great gain from the presence of the works, was 
very angry, and for some days my house had to be 
guarded by the police. The works went to Swindon, 
where they are much better placed in every respect, and 
peace returned. I almost think I could have gone to 
Parliament for Oxford. Harcourt,^ who did go, was in- 
troduced to the city by me. A seat in Parliament for 
myself, as I have said, I never desired. 

As Professor of History at Oxford I had for a pupil 
the present King, then Prince of Wales.^ He was a 
comely youth, like his mother in face, and with a slight 
German accent, showing, as he had not been in Ger- 
many, that German was spoken in his domestic circle. 
His manner was very engaging and he was thoroughly 
good-natured. I am sure I bored him when I went to 
examine him in history. A malicious story was current 
about Prince Albert's death. It was said to have been 
caused by sleeping in an unaired bed when he had gone 
down suddenly to Cambridge, where his son then was, 
to break off a bad engagement. I can say positively 

[1 Sir William George Granville Vernon Hareourt. See note on 
page 163, Chapter XI.] 

[^ This refers, of course, to his late Majesty, King Edward VII.] 



282 REMINISCENCES 

that the story was untrue. I was invited to go with 
the Prince's party to Canada ; but could not leave my 
Chair. The notion that I wanted anything in Canada 
was preposterous. I w^as happily and perfectly settled 
for life. The King ^ has always shown a kindly remem- 
brance of his old preceptor. 

Common Room Society must have been greatly 
broken up by the marriage of Fellows, which, as I 
have said, was necessary in order to secure an order of 
teachers devoted to their calling. But its like will 
not easily be found. 

Prince Leopold ^ afterwards came to Oxford, where I 
was introduced to him and had the honour of teaching 
him euchre. The weakness of his constitution debarred 
him from active sports and made him a musician and 
something of a virtuoso. He played well upon the 
piano. I was his guest, and, after his death, that of the 
Princess, his widow, at Claremont. It was curious to 
see the gentle pair entertaining us with music in the 
great room carpeted with the sumptuous gift of an 
Indian Prince, which Clive had probably paced, dis- 
tracted with agony, in the dark evening of his stormy 
day. The Duchess was a charming hostess, and has 
remained a most kind and valued friend. As I write 
this I mentally kiss her hand. 

One morning as I was sitting in my library my maid 



[1 His late Majesty, King Edward VII.] 

P Duke of Albany. Youngest brother of the late King, Edward 
VII.l 



OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 283 

came to tell me that there were two gentlemen waiting 
in the other room to see me. To my surprise one of 
them introduced the other as the Crown Prince of Den- 
mark.^ But I had scarcely got him into my hands as a 
pupil when he was snatched away by the Schleswig- 
Holstein War.^ 

My excellent friend Dr. Acland,^ the Professor of 
Medicine, in whose house many a pleasant evening was 
passed, went with the Prince to Canada. He was very 
affable, and not very guarded. At a ball at Quebec he 
was accosted by a stranger of gentlemanly manner, who 
drew him into conversation about the Prince. He said 
that the Prince was extremely amiable, but had not the 
brains of his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh. When 
the stranger went away, some one asked Acland whether 
he knew to whom he had been talking. Acland said 
that he did not. ^'That was the correspondent of the 
New York Herald.''^ A day or two afterwards the 
Prince came down to breakfast flourishing in his hand 
a copy of the New York Herald and saying, '^ Acland, I 
see that you think I am very amiable, but I have not 
the brains of my brother Edinburgh." This shows his 
good nature. 

In Canada, Oronyatekha,^ the Great that was to be, 
was introduced to Acland as a decided proof of Indian 

[1 The present King Frederik VIII.] 
[2 1864.] 

P Afterwards Sir Henry Wentworth Acland. 1815-1900.] 
[* Dr. Oronyatekha was afterwards Supreme Chief Ranger of the 
Independent Order of Foresters. Born 1841 ; died 1907.] 



284 REMINISCENCES 

capacity. Acland, always kind, and apt to be gushing, 
told Oronyatekha that they must have him at Oxford. 
Some time afterwards, thanks, I believe, to the liberality 
of the Prince, when Acland was at Oxford, Oronyatekha 
appeared. Acland entered him at what was then Mag- 
dalen Hall and is now Hertford College. It was not 
likely that academical studies or college rules would 
suit the aspiring Indian. He at all events left Magda- 
len Hall for a more practical field without taking a de- 
gree. Such was the version of the story which I heard 
at the time. Another version introduces the Prince of 
Wales. 

James I. had kindly but unwisely given the Univer- 
sity representation in Parliament, which involved it in 
politics. We had some fierce fights, owing to the grad- 
ual approximation of Gladstone to the Liberals and his 
consequent estrangement from his Tory friends, who 
sought angrily to unseat him as an apostate. In those 
days I was a fervent adherent of Gladstone, and an ac- 
tive member of his Committee. Our difficulty was in 
holding together the two sections of his supporters ; the 
High Churchmen, who clung to him for the sake of his 
religious opinions, hoping that he would influence 
Church appointments; and the Liberals, who wel- 
comed his political advances towards their side. Pal- 
merston, in whose Ministry Gladstone was Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, was fishing, through Lord Shaftes- 
bury, for the Evangelical vote, and allowed Shaftesbury 
to appoint Low Church Bishops. This brought our 



OXFORD PROFESSORSHIP 285 

difficulty to a head. I was instructed to see Gladstone 
and explain to him that unless his influence were soon 
seen in Church appointments, the High Church section 
would bolt, and his seat for the University would be 
lost. He began as usual by combating the fact. This 
was his way, and I could only let it pass. Presently he 
came round and asked whom they wanted made a 
Bishop. Probably he addressed the question to himself 
rather than to me ; the answer at all events was not 
in my instructions. The upshot of this and probably 
other representations of the same kind from different 
quarters was the appointment of Thomson,' Provost of 
Queen's, to the Bishopric of Peterborough, from which 
he soon afterwards mounted to the Archbishopric of 
York. 

The Tories made a grand mistake in ejecting Glad- 
stone from his seat for the University. They thereby, 
as he himself said, "unmuzzled" him. It curiously 
happened that on the day of his defeat the Bible fell 
from the hand of the statue of James I in the quad- 
rangle of the Bodleian. It was an omen of the separa- 
tion of the Church from the State, towards which Glad- 
stone's abolition of the State Church of Ireland was an 
important step, and towards which he would have taken 
another important step had he carried out his pledge 
of Disestablishment for Wales. I suspected, however, 
that of that pledge he repented, and that his unwilling- 
ness to fulfil it was partly the cause of his final retire- 

[1 William Thomson. 1819-1890.] 



286 REMINISCENCES 

ment from power. He remained to the last a High 
Churchman. To the last High Churchmen were his 
bosom friends, and they clung to him in spite of his 
political changes. They might bear with equanimity 
the disestablishment of the Irish Church, which was 
separate from the Church of England, and, from an- 
tagonism to the Irish Roman Catholics, Low Church 
in its doctrine. But the disestablishment of the Church 
of Wales, an integral part of the Church of England, 
would have cut them to the heart. 

The University Reform Bill and Oxford University 
elections brought me a good deal into contact with 
Gladstone. I followed him zealously till he suddenly 
embraced the policy which he had himself described as 
''wading through rapine to dismemberment." Then, 
not being able on the spur of the moment to invert my 
notions either of rapine or dismemberment, I was con- 
strained not only to leave him, but to do my best in aid 
of the opponents of his ''Home Rule." 



CHAPTER XVI 

PUBLIC E\^NTS 

Crimean War — The War Passion — The War Policy — Napoleon 
III — The Chartist Procession. 

There is no use in rehearsing the ''Annual Register." 
We of the Manchester School were against the Crimean 
War, and suffered by the war fever. The impression 
which I afterwards gathered from friends who had the 
best means of information was that the coalition Gov- 
ernment of Lord Aberdeen/ weak from internal differ- 
ences between Whigs and Peelites, while its chief, Lord 
Aberdeen, though the best of men, was wanting in 
firmness, had been gradually drawn to the brink of war 
by three men, each of whom had personal motives. 
Palmerston was a fanatical enemy of Russia, as the fatal 
expedition to the Cabul proved, and probably not very 
loyal to Lord Aberdeen, a Peelite and a Ministerof peace. 
Sir Stratford Canning ^ the Czar ^ had refused to receive 
as Ambassador at St. Petersburg. Louis Napoleon, like 
his putative uncle, wanted the consecration of glory for 
his usurped throne, and a recognized place for himself, 
an upstart of birth not unquestioned, among the 
crowned heads of Europe, which he gained by being 

[' See page -185, et seq., Chapter XII.] 

[2 Afterwards Viscount Stratford de RedcUfife. 1786-1880.] 

P Nicholas I.] 

287 



288 REMINISCENCES 

allowed publicly to embrace the Queen of England. It 
is possible that the French Emperor had the further 
design of sowing enmity between powers the union of 
which might have stood in the way of his ulterior views. 
He was a political cracksman who with his legs under 
your table would be meditating a raid upon your strong- 
box. His friend and confederate, Palmerston, at last 
awakened to his real character and bade the nation 
stand upon its guard. 

Sir Roderick Murchison, the geologist, who, having 
been invited to explore the mineral resources of the Ural, 
had been intimate with the Czar, assured me that 
Nicholas always spoke in the most cordial terms of 
Great Britain, which he regarded as the great conser- 
vative power. His offence and the cause of war, so far 
as could be made out through the cloud of diplomatic 
dust, was a premature anticipation of the dissolution of 
the Turkish Empire, to a partition of which and a share 
of the wreck he invited Great Britain. 

In the case of the Crimean, as afterwards in that 
of the Lorcha, War was seen the fatal ease with which 
the war passion is kindled when the means of indulging 
it, great armaments, are at hand. On the eve of the 
Crimean War nobody believed that it was coming. Few 
understood the diplomatic quarrel. But in an instant 
all was aflame. Bright was burnt in effigy, and every 
one who talked of bringing the war to an end was a 
traitor. Tennyson wrote those burning lines in 
''Maud," assuming that the weaker passions would be 



PUBLIC EVENTS 289 

extinguished by the fiercer; though to the ordinary 
frauds, such as that of Strahan and Paul/ were added 
the usual frauds of contractors; while if there was a 
"giant liar" on whom it behooved that the "justice of 
God " should be done, it was Tennyson's ally, the French 
Emperor. Yet the grass had barely grown on the 
graves of Sebastopol before opinion turned against the 
war. The Lorcha war was kindled by Bowring,^ the 
British Resident at Canton, a disciple of Bentham, 
who had quarrelled with the native authorities and em- 
braced the opportunity of promoting the greatest hap- 
piness of the greatest number by throwing bombs into 
the most densely peopled city in the world. It was 
practically a war in defence of the opium trade. By 
the House of Commons it was condemned. But when 
Palmerston appealed to the people, telling them that an 
insolent barbarian had trampled on the honour of the 
Empire by hauling down the flag of an opium smuggler, 
the flame burst out in full fury. Opponents of the war 
lost their seats in Parliament. The letters of the good 
Lord Elgin, who was sent to coerce the Chinese, show 
his feeling about his mission and the war.^ So long as 
there are great armaments on foot, wars of passion will 
not cease. 



[1 Messrs. Strahan, Paul, and Bates, bankers and navy agents, 
suspended payment on June the 11th, 1855.] 

[2 Sir John Bowring. 1792-1872.] 

P "Letters and Journals of James, eighth Earl of Elgin." . . . 
Edited by Theodore Walrond. London: Murray. 1872. Pages 
212, et seq.] 



290 REMINISCENCES 

During the Crimean War I was much at the house of 
my very kind and dear friend Mrs. Pearson/ the sister of 
Admiral Lyons. ^ Loss of the Agamemnon, Lyons's 
ship, was cried by newsboys under her window. To 
show in what a state was the supply department, the 
Admiral wrote to his sisters begging them to buy for him 
some quinine, of which the army was in great want. 
His sisters, on proceeding to fulfil his request, were told 
by the War Office that they might spare their pains, 
since quinine had been bought by the Government till 
the price of it had greatly risen in the market. It was 
all the time lying at Balaklava in the hold of a ship 
filled with other stores. The machine had just been 
brought into working order when Louis Napoleon 
stopped the war. 

The state of things was probably in some measure due 
to the senile despotism of the Duke of Wellington at the 
Horse Guards. The Duke's mind was failing in his last 
years, as he showed by foolish fondness for a woman of 
fashion, Mrs. Jones of Pant-y-Glass [sic],^ as well as by 

[1 Mrs. Henry Shepherd Pearson, formerly Caroline Lyons.] 
[2 Edmund Lyons, first Baron Lyons. 1790-1858.] 
P This was Margaret Charlotte, daughter of Sir George Camp- 
bell, of Edenwood, Fifeshire, and wife of David Jones, of Pantglas, 
Carmarthen, Member of Parliament for Carmarthen from 1852 to 
1874. She married a second time, after his death. Born 1825 ; 
died 1871. A selection from the Duke of Wellington's letters to 
Mrs. Jones were published, with the Duke's grandson's permission, 
in The Century Magazine of December, 1889 (Volume XXXIX, No. 2, 
p. 163), by Mary Eleanor, 'wife of Herbert Davies-Evans, Esq., of 
Highmead, Llanybyther, South Wales, Lord Lieutenant of Cardi- 
ganshire. Mrs. Davies-Evans is a daughter of Mrs. Jones, and to 
her I am indebted for kindly referring me to these letters.] 



PUBLIC EVENTS 291 

a long and strange though innocent correspondence 
with another woman/ Of the influence of Mrs. Jones 
of Pant-y-Glass Cobden told me a strange story which 
he said he had on the best authority. Her name had 
appeared in the promotion lists. 

There was an outcry because the allied fleets did not 
attack Odessa, the Russian arsenal. Absurd suspicions 
were cast upon as loyal a gentleman as ever lived, Sidney 
Herbert, who had Russian connections through his wife. 
When the war was over, I asked the Duke of Newcastle, 
who had been in the Cabinet, why Odessa had not been 
attacked. His reply was that the French Emperor 
would not consent. 

I have alluded to the French Emperor's birth. I 
once asked the best authority I knew on social France ^ 
whether Louis Napoleon was the son of his reputed 
father, and whether the Prince Imperial, on whose birth 
also doubt was cast, was the child of his reputed parents. 
The first question was answered decidedly in the nega- 
tive ; the second not less decidedly in the affirmative. 
There seems to be little doubt that Louis Napoleon was 
the son of the Dutch Admiral Verhuel. Court painters 
and sculptors struggled in vain to give him the Napo- 
leonic brow. Perhaps his Dutch phlegm and reticence 
gave him some advantage over the volatile Frenchmen 
with whom he had to deal. 

[1 This probably refers to " Miss J.," Wellington's letters to whom 
were published in 1890.] 

[= I think this must refer to Lady Verney, wife of Sir Harry 

Verney.] 



292 REMINISCENCES 

Delane, of the Times, who was with the army on its 
way to the Crimea, gave bad accounts of the behaviour 
of the French soldiery. He said that at Varna, a fire 
having broken out, advantage was taken of it by some 
Zouaves to violate the beautiful daughter of a Greek 
baker, and that when complaint was made to the French 
Conmiander, he treated it with indifference. The corps 
of Zouaves, however, was hardly French. Nominally 
Algerian, it was recruited from waifs of various races. 
It was said that a British officer in the Crimea addressed 
a Zouave officer in French, The Zouave answered in 
good English. '^Wliy," said the Englishman, ''you 
speak English very well." ''I should think I did. I 
was with you at Eton," 

I saw from the window of the Athenseum the return 
of the Guards from the Crimea. They marched with 
great simplicity, through a crowd rather full of emotion 
than demonstrative, to their barracks. I have wit- 
nessed more ostentatious but less impressive ovations. 

It is with amusement now that one looks back on the 
alarm felt in London on the 10th of April 1848,^ and the 
military preparations made to encounter a phantom of 
our fancy. We parted on the evening before the 
dreaded day, imagining that something terrible would 
happen before we met again. The House of Conmions 
sat surrounded by a cordon of troops. I had the honour 
to command a squad of special constables posted in 
Oxford Street. There was a stream of working-men 

[1 The day of the Chartist demonstration.] 



PUBLIC EVENTS 293 

eastward, but nothing to excite the slightest alarm. 
The car containing the monster petition ^ of the dreaded 
revolutionists was arrested on its way to Westminster 
by the special constables, who thought that the crowd 
had been robbing Astley's.^ The demonstration, how- 
ever, was effective in showing that England was op- 
posed to revolution. 

P Of the Chartists.] 

[* Astley's Circus, afterwards Sanger's.] 



CHAPTER XVII 



ELECTIONS 



Anthony John MundeUa - Sheffield - Trades-Unionism — Nurs- 
ing a Constituency — Election Tactics — The Party System. 

Against the siren voices which lured me to stand for 
a seat in ParUament I stopped my ears, knowing my 
total want of oratorical power, and being moreover little 
disposed to run the gantlet of popular election. The 
only instance in which I yielded was in the mortal 
struggle for the integrity of the United Kingdom against 
Gladstone and Home Rule; and luckily for me on that 
occasion I was saved by the delay of a telegram from 
the consequences of my compliance, and thus cheaply 
discharged my conscience as a patriot. But I enjoyed 
acting as bottle-holder to a friend. Mundella^ asked 
me to be with him when he first stood for Sheffield. We 
had to fight Roebuck, justly named ^'Tear 'em," who 
having once been the most violent of Radicals had 
become the most violent of those who are now called 
Jingoes, the most fanatical enemy of the American 
Republic, a prominent upholder of the Turk, and the 
most outrageous of anti-philanthropists, advocating 

[t Anthony John MundeUa. He was M.P. for Sheffield from 
1868 to 1885 ; and for the Brightside division of Sheffield from 1885 
to 1897. The general elections referred to were held m November 
and December of 1885.] 

294 



ELECTIONS 295 

the extermination of ''the wild man." We had, as 
might have been expected, an exciting time. Sheffield 
in those days was the seat of trades-unionism in its most 
sinister form. Not very long before had taken place the 
Sheffield murders. Mundella was approached by the 
most violent of the Unions. I asked him whether he 
could conscientiously give the pledges which the Union 
required, and on his saying that he could not, I advised 
him not to palter but to refuse point-blank, and thus, 
openly breaking with the Union, to win the suffrages of 
its enemies. The Government Whip, Mr. Sellar,^ 
through whom Mundella sent his invitation to me, had 
believed we should be beaten and questioned the ex- 
pediency of a contest which would send Roebuck back 
to Parliament a more violent enemy to the Government 
than ever. I appealed to Gladstone, who was always 
for fighting. We won, and by a large majority. 

At Sheffield we were opposed by the local Union, 
But I was no enemy to Unions in general. On the con- 
trary, I maintained that Unions in general were plainly 
needed to protect the interests of the working-men 
against the confederation of employers. I bore some 
hard knocks in that conflict. Keeping to lawful and 
proper courses^ the Unions may do good in other ways 
besides that of securing fair wages. To violence, intimi- 
dation, or monopoly, it is needless to say, I never could 
have been a friend. The Unions, if they take to those 
ways, will fall into the grave of the Guilds. When I see 

[1 Alexander Craig SeUar, M.P. from 1882 to 1888. 1835-1890.] 



296 REMINISCENCES 

an exulting announcement that a tradesman has been 
ruined by refusal to use the Union label, it is clear that 
there is something very wrong, and sure if it continues 
to rouse the community to resistance. Two great 
dangers are the leadership of professional agitators and 
the ascendency in the Union councils of young unmar- 
ried men. 

I took part in several other elections besides that of 
Sheffield, and saw some lively scenes; for, in spite of 
reforms, elections retained traces of their old character, 
and the meeting would sometimes be stormed by the 
enemy. Going with my excellent friend George Brod- 
rick,' afterwards Warden of Merton, to Woodstock, I 
had an opportunity of studying the protean character of 
bribery, which is not exterminated by bribery laws, but 
only chased from one form into another, and when sup- 
pressed in the form of money takes that of blankets or 
other doles. I knew a city in which, of the two seats, 
one was always fiercely contested, but the other was 
securely held by a man who had no political qualifica- 
tions, probably took little interest in politics, and 
seldom, except at elections, came near the place. He 
wanted the social grade and opportunities which a seat 
in the House of Commons then conferred. His method 
was simple. At Christmas a large sum of money was 
distributed by his local manager among the poor elec- 
tors, of whom there were a good many. Not a word 
was said about votes, nor was any distinction made on 

[1 The Honourable George Charles Brodrick.] 



ELECTIONS 297 

that score. But the recipients were left to conclude 
that the largess would continue so long as the donor 
was their Member. The seat probably cost its purchaser 
less than a yacht, and for his social objects the money 
was well spent. At a party meeting before a general 
election at which I was present, the question was raised 
as to the candidacy for a particular seat. One of those 
present told us that we need not trouble ourselves about 
that seat; it was already booked by a local man of 
wealth. I said the name surprised me, as I thought 
the man took no interest in politics. '' Neither does 
he," was the reply. ''Then why does he want the 
seat? " ''He does not want it." "Then why does he 
take it?" "Because his wife does." I think I could 
have pointed to a wealthy and titled pair whom any 
Minister might have made his own by getting them an 
invitation to a Court Ball. Nursing boroughs, it seems, 
has now become a system. It, at all events, like bribery 
of the old style, costs the State nothing, and the corrup- 
tion is limited. Demagogic bribery by the sacrifice of 
public interests corrupts the community at large, and 
costs the State a good deal. Witness the American 
Pension List. 

At elections you must have mass meetings to beat 
the big drum. But being attended only by your own 
party, they do not bring votes. For bringing votes, 
ward-meetings, with attention to the particular inter- 
ests or fancies of the district, seemed more effective. 
I was in England during the great fight for the Union 



298 REMINISCENCES 

in 1886, and being a zealous Unionist put myself at the 
service of the Unionist Committee and under its aus- 
pices took an active part in several elections. At one 
of them I went to the Committee-Room just before the 
polling day, and on asking what they were going to do 
on that evening, was told that they were going to hold 
a meeting in a certain quarter, in which, however, they 
could not hope to get votes, the people being mechanics 
or railway men who hated the Irish as competitors for 
employment, and had been convinced that if Home 
Rule was carried the Irish would be happy in their own 
island and would stay at home. I went to the meeting ; 
the evening was fine ; and the people from curiosity had 
filled the hall. I opened the meeting and soon found 
that I had before me an adverse audience. Then I 
called to mind what I had heard in the morning. I 
said that there was one question of the highest impor- 
tance which seemed to me not to have received suffi- 
cient attention; which policy. Home Rule or Union, 
would have the greater tendency to keep the Irish at 
home? I argued that Home Rule would frighten 
capital away from Ireland; that employment there 
would consequently be diminished, and more Irish than 
ever would come over to England and particularly to 
that city. This I turned backwards and forwards for 
half an hour. From the moment at which I touched 
that chord I was heard with attention; and though I 
concluded without a cheer, I understood afterwards that 
we polled a number of votes in that district, sufficient, 



ELECTIONS 299 

the parties being nearly balanced, to turn the election. 
I may say this without breach of modesty, since the 
effect was due not to my eloquence, but wholly to the 
hint received in the morning, on which I mechanically 
acted. Such are the things which turn popular elec- 
tions. 

In the campaign against Home Rule the great difficulty 
and the object of my mission was to get Liberals who had 
always voted Yellow to give a Blue vote on the grand 
issue. At one place to which I went there was a leading 
Liberal whose presence at the meeting was thought very 
important, but who was hanging back. I was sent to 
persuade him. He pleaded weakness which prevented 
his attending a public meeting. But I noticed in the 
room a young gentleman evidently listening eagerly. 
I asked the gentleman whether that was his son, and 
being told he was, I said, ''Then perhaps he would come 
to represent you." The youth eagerly caught at the 
proposal, his father was caught, and we had the satis- 
faction of placing the son in the front of the platform 
as the representative of his father unfortunately de- 
tained by ill-health. 

■ Let me say that my experience of elections deeply 
impressed me with the evils of the party system. A 
great issue like that of the Union may raise it for the 
moment above itself. But as a rule it is immoral and 
indefensible. Chatham was trying to govern without 
it when disease smote him down. Burke's attack on 
Chatham's government is mere sophistry, however 



300 REMINISCENCES 

rhetorically brilliant. His object was to get the Rock- 
ingham clique, with himself as its manager, into power. 
What is the special "principle " on which he supposes 
his party to be founded ? ^ It is nothing but a special 
question with the settlement of which the moral and 
rational foundation for his party will come to an end. 
The eloquence of Burke is unquestionable; so is his 
patriotism ; so is his political wisdom when his passions 
are not moved as they are to the total ruin of his 
sagacity and regard for fact in his Essay on the 
French Revolution. 

[1 I think the reference is to "Party is a body of men united, for 
promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some 
particular principle in which they are all agreed." — "Thoughts on 
the Cause of the Present Discontents." Burke's works. London: 
Rivlngton. 1826. Vol. II, p. 335.] 



CHAPTER XVIII 

IRELAND 

1862 ; 1881 

Cardwell as Irish Secretary — The Irish People — Irish Liberals — 
Crime in Ireland — Education — Social Life — Robert Lowe — 
Second visit to Ireland — Lord O'Hagan — Royal visits to 
Ireland — W. E. Forster — Gladstone's Irish Policy. 

The summer of 1862 1 spent in Ireland with Cardwell/ 
then Irish Secretary, at The Lodge in PhcEnix Park. 
Of all parks that I ever saw, the Phoenix, with its view 
of the Wicklow Hills, is the most beautiful. Yet it was 
little frequented by the citizens of Dublin, who seemed 
to prefer the streets, and left their Park in a solitude 
which fitted it to be the scene of the Murders.^ Card- 
well, being a Cabinet Minister, was the real ruler. The 
Lord Lieutenant, Lord Carlisle,' a most amiable and 
popular man, was happy in displaying his admirable 
social qualities by making the after-dinner speeches 
in which, thanks to his unique flow of heartfelt flum- 

[1 Edward Cardwell, Viscount Cardwell, Secretary to the Treas- 
ury, 1845-1846; President of the Board of Trade, 1852-1855; 
Secretary for Ireland, 1859-1861 ; Colonial Secretary, 1864-1866 ; 
Secretary for war, 1868-1874. Born 1813 ; died 1886.] 

[- The reference is to the murder of Lord Frederick Charles Cav- 
endish and Thomas Henry Burke on May the 6th, 1882.] 

[^ George WiUiam Frederick Howard, seventh Earl of Carhsle. 
1802-1864.] 

301 



302 REMINISCENCES 

mery, he was unrivalled, and by occasionally scoring at 
cricket. 

The general impression, I believe, was that Cardwell 
had failed as Irish Secretary. It is certain that he was 
the reverse of a typical Irishman. To give him an in- 
sight into Irish character I had persuaded him before 
he came over to see the '^ Colleen Bawn," I fear with no 
good effect. But I do not believe that he failed. His 
patience, industry, justice, and impartiality were ap- 
preciated by the best Irishmen ; my inquiries led me to 
believe that they were appreciated by the people at 
large; and I came away disabused of the belief that 
roistering misrule is the only thing for Ireland. That 
there is a tendency of that sort in the Irish character 
may be true, but it calls for an antidote, not for in- 
dulgence. 

On Cardwell's arrival at Dublin, a list of promises 
which had been made to supporters of the Government 
was laid before him. The staid English official stood 
aghast when he saw how much their number exceeded 
the possibilities of performance. He was told that he 
need not be uneasy. A promise, even though it could 
not be fulfilled, was preferred to a refusal. The angler 
prefers a bite to a perfectly blank day. 

I was deeply impressed with the pensive beauty of 
Ireland and the weird melancholy of its relics, the 
Round Towers, the Seven Churches of Glendalough, 
the Hill of Cashel, the ruins of the primeval seat of 
learning at Clonmacnois. With the historic pathos 



IRELAND 303 

mingled the comic traits of Irish character ; a field with 
grand iron portals and no fence; a house with three 
windows and a flight of marble steps fit for a mansion ; 
a magnificent chimney-piece with filthy walls; a fine 
lodge with two pieces of timber laid across each 
other for a gate ; excellent wines and execrable cookery. 
One could faintly realize the old roaring and reckless 
days. I had supposed the pig in the family to be a 
satire, but found it a reality. The people in their pen- 
ury were light-hearted. But I am told they are chang- 
ing their mood as well as ceasing to be attached to their 
social chiefs. It is said that their simplicity of character, 
their love of fun, and the wit, which over-leaping itself 
produced their bulls, have since these stern political 
struggles been passing away, and that a more sombre 
hue is coming over the whole scene. 

At the time of my visit even, ''ould Ireland," with 
its factions and feuds, the relics of the clan, was hardly 
extinct. Not long before, the Government had been 
called upon to stop the annual faction-fight between 
the two-year-olds and three-year-olds, the origin of 
whose feud was lost in fabulous antiquity, but was sup- 
posed to have been a dispute about the age of a steer. 
In another place two factions fought annually for a 
mystic stone. The magistrates, by direction of the 
Government, sank the stone in the river. The two 
factions combined in fishing it up, and then fought for it. 
Donnybrook Fair, however, had ceased to exist. 

Before I left Ireland I came distinctly to two con- 



304 REMINISCENCES 

elusions. One was that the Irish character, with all its 
defects, its unthrift, recklessness, lawlessness, and love 
of conspiracy, was largely the product of Irish history. 
The other was that Irish history, with all its calamities 
and horrors, was the product of untoward accident 
more than of anybody's crimes. I embodied these 
conclusions in an essay on "Irish History and Irish 
Character " * which, though now superseded and for- 
gotten, had some novelty and some vogue at the time. 
I drew my inspiration from some of the last of the 
Irish Liberals, constant intercourse with whom I en- 
joyed, such as Lord O'Hagan,^ Sir Alexander McDon- 
nell,' the head of the Education Department and the 
organizer of national education; Dr. Russell,* the Prin- 
cipal of Maynooth, a most excellent, liberal, and lovable 
man; Professor Simpson of Belfast;^ and a member 
of the Catholic Hierarchy whose name has escaped my 
aged memory. All these men, while they were thor- 
oughly patriotic Irishmen, were firmly attached to the 



[1 Oxford and London : J. H. and Jas, Parker. 1862.] 

p Thomas O'Hagan, first Baron O'Hagan, Lord Chancellor of 
Ireland. 1812-1885.] 

[^ Sir Alexander McDonnell, first Baronet, Chief Clerk in the 
Chief Secretary's office, in Ireland ; Resident Commissioner of the 
Board of Education, Ireland, 1839-1871. Born 1794; died 1875.] 

[* Charles William Russell. 1812-1880.] 

[^ So the MS. But Mr. J. M. Finnegan, Secretary of the Queen's 
University of Belfast, writes to me : " I am afraid there must be 
some error, as there was no Professor of this name in Queen's Col- 
lege, and, as far as I can make out, none of that name in Belfast." 
— Perhaps the author means the late Dr. Maxwell Simpson, F.R.S., 
who was Professor of Chemistry at Queen's College, Cork.] 



IRELAND 305 

Union. They desired Disestablishment, and such im- 
provement in the land law as could be made without 
impairing the faith of contracts, as well as certain sec- 
ondary reforms, including better facilities for private- 
bill legislation and perhaps for legal appeals. But 
from the thought of dissolving the Union they all 
recoiled; and they rebuked me if I said anything the 
least tending that way. 

'What is certain, to my mind, is that the choice lies 
between Legislative Union and Independence. A 
vassal Parliament such as Gladstone proposed would 
presently struggle for equality and freedom. Before 
the Union, when there were two Parliaments, the con- 
nection between the two islands, and the subordina- 
tion of Ireland to England were maintained by undis- 
guised corruption. That state of things nobody would 
desire to revive. What the people wanted, as I always 
believed, was the land, which had been the object of 
contention in every crisis of Irish history; and had 
security of tenure, like that of the English copyholder, 
been given them, the political agitation, it seemed to 
me, would have subsided ; it never showed much force 
apart from the agrarian movement. But I would not 
undertake to say how far the spirit of nationality has 
been evoked by the long struggle, or what concession 
to it may have become unavoidable. The worst of all 
policies, however, it seems to me, is Home Rule, if 
Home Rule means a vassal Parliament. 
Agrarian murder, in other words the war of assassi- 



306 REMINISCENCES 

nation against the landlords, had barely ceased. Land- 
lords were too often absentees ; — grinding the people 
through their agents. Some of the absentee estates, 
the Lansdowne estates among the number, were liber- 
ally managed ; but this did not make up for the absence 
of the proprietor and the non-performance of his terri- 
torial duties. It was said that, an agent having com- 
plained to his absentee employer that his life was in 
danger, the employer replied, *^Tell them that they 
need not think to intimidate me by shooting you." 
The people were one vast agrarian conspiracy, so that 
conviction was impossible. The Attorney-General 
could give the Council an exact account of an agrarian 
murder with the names of the murderer and of those 
who had been present. But when it was proposed to 
him to prosecute, his answer was, that every one of the 
witnesses would forswear himself, and thus his only 
chance, that of getting one of them at a later day to turn 
King's evidence, would be lost. 

There is risk in the employment of detectives. An 
agrarian murder had been committed, and a large re- 
ward was offered for conviction. Part of the cartridge 
was picked up and proved to be a leaf taken from a 
common school-book. Suspicion fixed on a man in 
the neighbourhood who kept such books for sale. A 
detective got admission to the house and reported that 
the book was there and that the fatal leaf was missing. 
The police entered the house and brought away the 
book. The proof seemed clear. But before proceed- 



IRELAND 307 

ing, the Attorney-General suggested a reference to the 
pubhsher of the book. The pubhsher's reply was that 
it was the right book, but not the right edition. The 
detective had torn the leaf out of the book which he 
found in the house of the suspected man to get a con- 
viction and pocket the reward. 

I visited Dr. Russell at Maynooth, and witnessed 
the perfection of that system of mental drill and of 
isolation from every breath of free opinion by which, 
carried on through a course of seven years, an Irish 
peasant is turned into a priest with no ideas but those 
instilled by authority, and no aspiration but devotion 
to his Church. The text-book was Suarez, even the 
comparatively liberal Aquinas being disused. When, 
to such a training, celibacy and corporate influence was 
superadded, it was easy to understand how the Church 
kept so complete a hold on her clergy and why apostasy 
was so rare. Sir Alexander McDonnell and all my 
Protestant friends bore emphatic testimony to the 
purity of the Irish priesthood. 

A peasant clergy sympathized with the peasantry in 
political and agrarian struggles. The Hierarchy, 
mingling socially with the upper classes, were more 
conservative, and it seemed to me would have dis- 
countenanced Fenianism altogether if they had not 
been dependent on their people for their incomes. 
The policy of payment, ascribed to Pitt, would no doubt 
have had its effect. The people, however, could keep 
their secrets from the priesthood. Dr. Russell told 



308 REMINISCENCES 

me that they had no idea they had any Fenians in the 
village of Maynooth till, one of the abortive risings 
having taken place, a number left the village to join it. 

At the time of my visit the issue was national educa- 
tion, which afforded a field for the liberalism of Bishop 
Moriarty ^ and Catholics of his school. Of the Catholic 
laity not a few were at heart with the Government. 
Some would come up the back stairs and promise their 
support so long as the Government showed perfect 
respect for their Church. 

The religious war between Catholics and Protestants 
was not over. The two denominations of Christians 
were still breaking each other's heads at Belfast. 
Protestant challenges to controversy uncomplimentary 
to the Virgin and the Saints were posted on the walls. 
In making up dinner-parties at The Lodge it was neces- 
sary to take care how members of the hostile Churches 
were confronted with each other. 

\ The mainstay of order was the Constabulary, a noble 
body of men, whether the policy of which they were the 
bodyguard was wise or not. The Constabulary was 
Protestant ; but the ordinary police was largely Roman 
Catholic. Yet it was trustworthy; loyalty to the corps 
prevailing over religious feeling. The Irishman seems 
to be fond of Government service and faithful to its 
uniform. 

There were some relics of the old convivial days. At 
the dinner parties in the Vice-regal Lodge, when the 

[1 David Moriarty, Bishop of Kerry. 1814-1877.] 



IRELAND 309 

ladies left the room, the servants remained, and as soon 
as you put down your glass they refilled it. I thought 
I saw some effects of this generous hospitality. 

The Horse Fair at Ballinasloe disappointed me. So 
did not the Cashel steeplechases, to see which I unsenti- 
mentally gave up Killarney. Tipperary trooped into 
Cashel with its swallow-tail coats of frieze, its tall hats, 
and shillelahs. The races were excellent, and the course 
was so chosen that from a rising ground you could see 
them well. The enthusiasm of the people was delight- 
ful. Mounted police were riding about to keep order, 
and late in the day there seemed to be some need of 
them. Has the chilling influence of politics now been 
cast over the race-course at Cashel ? 

There were guests at The Lodge in Phoenix Park, 
among them was Sir John Lawrence,^ afterwards 
Governor-General of India, in all the simplicity of true 
greatness. I asked his opinion of the competition- 
wallahs, the nickname given to the civil servants 
appointed under the then new system of competitive 
examination. Of all men I thought he was the least 
likely to put literary above practical qualifications. 
He gave sentence, however, in favour of the wallahs, 
saying that when another officer of Government wrote 
to him about them in a disparaging strain, his reply 
was, that he would be glad to exchange. 

Robert Lowe, afterwards Lord Sherbrooke,^ was 

[1 Afterwards Baron Lawrence. 1811-1879.] 

p Robert Lowe, first Viscount Sherbrooke, a politician in New 
South Wales, 1843-1850 ; M.P. in England, 1852-1874 ; held many 
high political posts. Born 1811 ; died 1892.] 



310 REMINISCENCES 

there for some time with his wife. Him I had already 
known well. There is a memoir of him written under 
the auspices of the second wife/ whose affection soothed 
his spirit in his old age. The fame of the man who 
made the last great stand in favour of middle-class 
government against democracy can hardly have died 
away. It was not for aristocracy that he fought; 
though an intense aristocrat of intellect, he was in 
nothing else aristocratic; but for government by the 
educated against government by the masses. He 
had perhaps seen the rough side of democracy in New 
South Wales, where for some years he had practised 
Law at a time before the convict taint had been thor- 
oughly worked off. I forget whether it was he or one 
of his friends who at a Ball at Government House had 
the misfortune to tread upon and tear the gorgeous 
dress of a lady. The fair wearer turned upon the cul- 
prit with an expression of her wounded feelings which 
cannot with any approach to decency be repeated. 
It was a bitter moment for Robert Lowe when, Glad- 
stone's Reform Bill having been thrown out mainly by 
his efforts, and the Liberal Ministry having thus been 
overturned, Disraeli brought in a Bill ^ not less demo- 
cratic than that of Gladstone, and the Conservative 

[1 This must refer to the "Life and Letters of the Right Honour- 
able Robert Lowe Viscount Sherbrooke, G.C.B., D.C.L., etc. With 
a Memoir of Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, C.G.B., Sometime Gov- 
ernor-General of Canada." By A. Patchett Martin. London : 
Longmans, Green, and Co., 1893 ; for it is dedicated to Caroline, 
Viscountess Sherbrooke.] 

P March 18, 1867.] 



IRELAND 311 

rank and file, who had rapturously applauded Lowe's 
anti-democratic speeches, sat, under the rod of party 
discipline, sullenly supporting the Bill and deaf to the 
passionate appeals which Lowe made to them. It 
was said that he was moved to tears. 

Lowe was an albino, with eyes so weak that when he 
was reading his nose literally touched his book. He 
took high honours at Oxford, and it is said would have 
taken higher if he had not rubbed out with his nose 
what he had written with his pen. Yet I have been 
driven by him in a phaeton at a rattling pace through 
crowded streets. 

In public, Lowe affected a utilitarian contempt for 
classical education; in private he was always reading 
the classics. When I was staying with him at Cater- 
ham he asked me what I thought was the best history 
of the Roman Republic. I told him Mommsen's,^ 
which had just appeared. A few days afterwards an 
editorial in a leading newspaper for which he wrote 
began, ''In Mr. Thompson's history of the Roman 
Republic, which appears to us to be the best." I 
wonder whether booksellers received orders for the 
book! 

Lowe was the most naturally and spontaneously 
brilliant talker that I ever knew. Other great talkers 
wanted an audience. Lowe did not. He was not less 



[i"R6mische Geschichte." By Theodor Mommsen. An Eng- 
lish translation (in five volumes) was made by the Rev. William P. 
Dickson, and published by Richard Bentley, London, in 1867.] 



312 REMINISCENCES 

likely to say a good thing to you as you sat by him on 
the driving-box than to say it to the most appreciative 
circle. Touch him when you would, he gave out the 
electric spark. His talk was rather cynical and sar- 
donic in form; but he was not really a C5m.ic; he was 
a Democritus who laughed at the world ; though rather 
too impatient of honest stupidity. ''Look at that 
fool throwing away his natural advantages!" he 
exclaimed when a deaf member of the House of Com- 
mons put up his ear trumpet. 

Mrs. Lowe was a fat, good-natured lady, clever in 
her way, for she painted well, and an excellent wife, 
but rather a joke among her friends. Her husband, 
though he loved her dearly, sometimes could not help 
making fun of her. One morning at breakfast he was 
railing in his dashing way at the marriage service of the 
Church of England: ''It made me" — turning to his 
wife — "say 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow,' 
when I had no worldly goods to endow you with." 

"Ah! Robert; but then there were your brains." 

"Well, all the world knows I did not endow you with 
them." 

Spreading his arms to help her spacious person down 
from a jaunting-car, he exclaimed, "Descend, ye Nine ! " 
Combative he certainly was, and he had at least his 
fair share of foes. The "Whitehead torpedo" was his 
nickname.^ A party of us, including the old Lord 

[1 "Lord Beaeonsfield's mind being now exclusively turned upon 
military matters, there has occurred to him a new and happy name 



IRELAND 313 

Chancellor Cranworth/ went to see Powerscourt water- 
fall. Our cars brought us back to the station some 
time before the arrival of the train. To fill up the time 
Lowe said, ''Let us have a row with the car-men about 
the fare." A row it actually became, and the Lord 
Chancellor looked the picture of dismay. Lowe prized 
intellect above all things, in others and in himself. At 
the time when his own powerful mind was giving way, 
and had painfully betrayed its decadence in the House 
of Commons, we met at an Academy dinner. Lowe 
took me to see a picture at which he had just been look- 
ing and admired. He failed to identify it, and he burst 
into tears. 

Twenty years afterwards^ I was in Ireland again, 
presiding over a section of the Social Science Associa- 
tion at Dublin. This time I was the guest of my friend 
the ex-Chancellor, Lord O'Hagan. If the Irish ques- 
tion could only have been put into the hands of a few 
men like him for quiet settlement, instead of being made 
the prey of demagogism and the football of party, 
how much better would the result have been, and how 
much less the public morahty and the faith of contracts 
have suffered in the process ! 

Lord O'Hagan's political saint was Arthur O'Leary,^ 

for his old adversary, Lowe. He alludes to him in private conver- 
sation as ' The Whitehead Torpedo.' " — "A Diary of Two Parlia- 
ments." By Henry "W. Lucy. The Disraeli Parliament. 1874- 
1880. Second edition. Cassell and Co. 1885. Under date April 16, 
1878.] 

[1 Robert Monsey Rolfe, Baron Cranworth. 1790-1868.] 

P October, 1881.] [» Irish priest and politician. 1729-1802.] 



314 REMINISCENCES 

whose portrait hung in his study, and whose policy was 
union with justice. It has recently been discovered 
that O'Leary was in communication with the Govern- 
ment, and received money from it. This would have 
been a shock to O'Hagan. But there is no reason to 
suspect the sincerity of O'Leary's convictions or to 
reverse any opinion as to the soundness of his views. 
Nothing that has transpired warrants us in calling him 
a spy. 

There was no excuse for the neglect of Ireland by 
the Court during the late reign. ^ The Queen, when 
she paid a brief visit, was received as enthusiastically 
as she could desire. That the probable effect of her 
presence has been somewhat overrated is not unlikely, 
but her persistent absence was felt as a standing affront. 
Royalty must be charitably judged, since it is inevitably 
nursed in delusion. The claims of duty are never 
brought home to it. It is made to feel by flattery that 
the gratification of its own whims is a public duty. 
There was, however, in this case an uneasy conscious- 
ness of the omission. I believe I heard it on good 
authority that an Irish Lord-in- Waiting who had rashly 
touched the tender point received a message which 
caused him to resign. 

At the close of the Convention I had to propose a 
vote of thanks to a scientific society which had given 
us a breakfast in the Phoenix Park. I said that the 
Phoenix Park seemed to me by its beauty to be not less 

[1 That is, the reign of Queen Victoria.] 



IRELAND 315 

worthy of the occasional residence of Royalty than 
Osborne or Balmoral. The sentiment was cheered. 
In the evening there was a banquet at the Mansion 
House at which the Lord-Mayor echoed what I had 
said in the morning. Prince Teck/ who was a guest, 
followed suit, with a strong expression of his regret 
that the Royal family did not come more to Ireland; 
''and why they do not, I don't know why." This of 
course made a sensation, and was echoed by the morn- 
ing papers. The Prince then knew that he had of- 
fended, and an attempt to mop him up was made, I 
believe, in one of the evening papers, but with the 
usual result. Presently out came a long editorial, 
evidently inspired, in the Times, taking me, poor inno- 
cent as I was, to task for having given expression to 
what was called the paradoxical notion that it would 
be a good thing for the Court to visit Ireland, and 
demonstrating by arguments which seemed to me 
rather paradoxical that such a step would be most 
unwise. Afterwards the Prince of Wales ^ referred to 
the question in a public speech, though in language per- 
fectly kind towards his old teacher, showing thereby 
how sore the subject was. 

Among the Company at O'Hagan's was a very pleas- 
ant and well-informed man whom I did not know, 
but who, I afterwards learned, was a leading writer in 

[* H. S. H. Francis Paul Charles Louis Alexander, Prince and 
Duke of Teck, son of Duke Alexander of Wiirtemberg, born 1837. 
Father of Her Majesty, our present Queen.] 

P Afterwards King Edward VII.] 



316 REMINISCENCES 

the TiTnes. As he and I strolled in the grounds one 
morning, our conversation turned on the subject of 
the Royal neglect of Ireland, and I spoke of George IV's 
visit as a redeeming point in his unedifying career. 
My companion heartily concurred. It may have been 
my fancy, but I thought that in the editorial taking the 
other side I identified a phrase which had been used 
in that morning's conversation. 

Tliis was the time of the struggle with Parnell and 
his Nationalist following. Things had come to such a 
pass that some who did not sympathize with the League 
were joining it to obtain for their callings the protec- 
tion which the Queen's Government could no longer 
afford. The Irish Secretary and the occupant of The 
Lodge was another friend of mine, W. E. Forster,^ an 
able, honest, solid, and most industrious, though rather 
uncouth man, who, it was thought, with a little grace 
and polish might have achieved to the highest place. 
In grace and polish, however, he was totally wanting. 
I have seen him in speaking stand for some time on 
one leg holding up a glass of water in one hand as if 
he were going to drink it to the health of the audience. 
He was fighting the Parnellites with a Coercion Bill 
in hourly danger of assassination, as was subsequently 
proved. 

I wrote something in defence of Forster's application 
of the Coercion Act, saying that one of three things 

[1 William Edward Forster ; liberal M.P. for Bradford, 1861- 
1886 ; held several high political posts. 1818-1886.J 



IRELAND 317 

had to be done; either the Coercion Act must be 
appHed; or the troops must fire; or the Queen's 
Government in Ireland, as it could no longer protect 
people in their lawful callings, must resign. Forster 
soon after came over to England. When we met he 
thanked me for my defence of him, but said that a dif- 
ferent policy had prevailed. From his tone I augured 
that he was about to resign, as a day or two afterwards 
he did. 

Peel, when he changed, averred his change, and gave 
credit to those who had converted him. Gladstone 
set his retrospective imagination at work to make out 
that he had always been consistent. If, as he pre- 
tended in his "History of an Idea," ^ his mind had many 
years before been turning towards Home Rule, how 
could he justify himself in continuing to lead the nation 
on what he had begun to suspect was a wrong line, in 
denouncing Parnell as ''wading through rapine to dis- 
memberment"; in proclaiming his arrest to a shouting 
multitude at Guildhall; in throwing him and his fol- 
lowers into prison; above all in allowing his own col- 
leagues, especially his Home Secretary, to rise at his 
side night after night and denounce the Home Rule 
movement and its leader in most scathing terms? 
Is it possible by any stretch of charity to doubt that 
Gladstone's failure in 1885 to obtain a majority inde- 
pendent of the Parnellites was the proximate cause of 
his sudden accession to Home Rule ? That he should 

[1 Published in August, 1886.] 



318 REMINISCENCES 

have persuaded himself of the contrary is only one of 
the many proofs that his power of self-deception was 
unbounded. It is not less true that his emotions were 
generous and that his enthusiasm when once he had 
espoused any cause was perfectly real. 



CHAPTER XIX 

AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 
1861-1865 

Secession — Its True Character — Lincoln's View — The Alabama 
Claim — Attitude of the British Government — British Liberals 
— Visits to the United States — Friends in the United States — 
J. M. Forbes — Emerson — Lowell — Bancroft — The Attitude 
of the North — Finance — General Butler — The Opposing 
Forces — General Grant — Sherman — General Meade — Lee — 
General Butler again — ^Washington — Seward — Abraham Lincoln. 

In 1861 came Secession, and what was taken to be 
the death-knell of the American Republic. The 
aristocratic and wealthy classes in England generally, 
exulting in the downfall of democracy, at once em- 
braced the side of the South. A short time before 
they had given an ovation to the authoress of ''Uncle 
Tom's Cabin." But that was when slavery was the 
reproach of the Republic. 

Classes will be classes. The success of American 
democracy had always been a threat to aristocracy in 
England. But the people in England generally would 
not have been without excuse if they had gone wrong. 
Slavery was accursed ; it was under the ban of human- 
ity; England had made great efforts and sacrifices 
for its extinction. Its extension, which would probably 
have ensued on the slave-owners' victory, would have 

319 



320 REMINISCENCES 

been the bane of moral civilization. On this account, 
and on this account only, was any one bound to take 
the side of the North. With a war for the reconquest 
of a new-born nation, severed from the Northern States 
by a natural line of cleavage after a long period of 
internal strife, we should in no way have been called 
upon to sympathize. But on slavery Congress, Lin- 
coln, and Seward had disclaimed any intention of 
making war, and Congress had offered to perpetuate 
its constitutional existence if the Slave States would 
return to the Union. We who took the side of the 
North had to contend that the formal was not the prac- 
tical issue, and to make the masses see this was not easy, 
especially when the masses, by the cutting off of cot- 
ton, were being stinted of their bread. Mr. Spence,^ in 
his cunning book, had propagated the notion that the 
real issue was economical, and that the South was for 
Free Trade ; as it was, though not from enlightenment, 
but because slavery could not manufacture. Cobden, 
as I have said, wavered at first, though he soon came 
round to the truth. Bright came out at once for the 
North, and delivered in St. James's Hall the best speech 
I ever heard. All things considered, the conduct of 
the British people was surely good. The partisans of 

P James Spenee, of Liverpool. "The American Union; its 
Effect on National Character and Policy, with an Inquiry into 
Secession as a Constitutional Right, and the Causes of the Disrup- 
tion." London. 1861. — Also, "On the Recognition of the Southern 
Confederation." London. 1862. — Also " Southern Independence : 
an Address." London : Bentley. 1863.] 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 321 

the South, though they spat a good deal of fire and 
had the mighty Times on their side, never ventured, 
in ParUament or elsewhere, to make a decided move in 
favour of intervention. Lincoln, with all his wisdom 
and goodness of heart, never took — or at least never 
showed that he took — a right view of the case with 
which he had to deal ; if he had, perhaps there would 
have been no war. He viewed and treated as a rebel- 
lion that which was in fact a natural disruption, post- 
poned for some time by uneasy shifts and compromises, 
but inevitable in the end. This same error pervaded 
Reconstruction. It led to the fatal exclusion of the 
Southern leaders from the work of Reconstruction, to 
Carpet-bagging government, to the Ku-Klux, and to 
the almost desperate situation which has ensued. It 
is true that Lincoln's personal character and history 
were, to those who knew them, a pledge for the adop- 
tion of the antislavery policy if victory rested with his 
party; but by us in England Lincoln's character and 
history were unknown, and his official utterances were 
naturally taken as decisive. 

The great writers having generally gone with their 
class, my pen was in requisition on the side of the North. 
It is true, as J. M. Forbes is recorded in his daughter's 
Memoir ^ of him to have noted, that I somewhat hesi- 
tated at first. It seemed hardly our business to fan 
the flame of civil war in another nation. But I also 

[1 " Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes." Edited 
by his Daughter, Sarah Forbes Hughes. Boston and New York : 
Houghton Mifflin Co. 1899. Volume II, page 108.] 

Y 



322 REMINISCENCES 

felt a doubt, which in the sequel has proved not base- 
less, about the policy of reincorporating the Slave 
States. The first ground of hesitation was removed by 
the efforts of the South to draw us into the quarrel. 
The second was swept away by the progress of the war, 
which left us practically to choose between the victory 
of freedom and that of slavery. 

My first appearance on a platform was at a great 
meeting in the Free Trade Hall at Manchester, called, 
upon the escape of the Alabama, to protest against the 
fitting out of cruisers for the South. The meeting was 
called by the Union League, an organization at the 
head of which was Thomas Potter,^ one of the leaders 
of Manchester commerce, and a brand plucked from 
the burning; for Manchester magnates generally leant 
to the other side. At that moment we were seriously 
alarmed. Other cruisers were being built in Laird's 
yard, and a party, of which the present Lord Salisbury,^ 
then Lord Robert Cecil, was an active member, were 
working to prevent their arrest. Too strong language 
was used by me and others at that crisis. When all 
was known, the Government was seen to have been 
guilty only of allowing the papers to lie too long before 
the Queen's Advocate, who it did not know had been 
suddenly stricken with illness. The order for the arrest 
of the Alabama was on its way when she sailed, without 



[1 Thomas Bayley Potter. 1817-1898.] 

P This, of course, refers to the third Marquess of Salisbury, 
father of the present Marquess.] 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 323 

a clearance, on a pretended trip of pleasure. She 
took on board her armament from a tender at the 
Azores. There was one seaman of the Reserve in her 
crew, but Government had no general control over the 
engagements of those men. Allowance must be made 
for a Government responsible for very scattered pos- 
sessions and exposed for four years to the strain of 
maintaining a neutrality which the South was always 
trying to break. Nations which, instead of settling 
their differences by negotiation or arbitration, disturb 
the neighbourhood by going to war, must be content 
with reasonable maintenance of an honest neutrality. 
The Government of the United States had no shadow 
of justification for making war on Spain other than the 
trouble to which it was put in maintaining the neutrality 
between the Spaniards and the insurgent Cubans, 
though the enforcement was not very strict, filibuster- 
ing expeditions having escaped, and Cuban revolution 
having been allowed freely to operate at New York. 
I was glad when the indemnities were paid by the Brit- 
ish Government, because the payment plucked out a 
thorn. But I doubt whether they were due ; I feel sure 
that, in any case but that of the Alabama, they were 
not. 

I lived with those who could not be misinformed, and 
my conviction is that the British Government remained 
throughout unshaken in its neutrality, and never for 
a moment gave ear either to the solicitations of the 
South or to the promptings of the Emperor of the 



324 REMINISCENCES 

French. Palmerston was a Tory, and his heart may 
have been with the Southern oUgarchy. On the 
Trent affair he drafted a despatch, instinct with his 
overbearing temper, which was happily modified by 
the Prince Consort. But he was deeply pledged to the 
extinction of slavery. About the course of the Duke 
of Argyll, Cornewall Lewis, or Cardwell, there could 
be no doubt. Of Gladstone's course and his motives 
for it I have already spoken. In him there may have 
been a tincture of Liverpool.^ But he sympathized 
with all struggles for independence. In a letter to me 
he suggested that if the North would let the South go, 
Canada might afterwards be allowed to enter the Union. 
I suppressed the letter, which I thought would be of 
little use at the time and might afterwards do him harm. 
Though he said, and had the fact on his side in saying, 
that Jeff Davis had made a nation, it did not follow 
that he voted for intervention in the Cabinet. I feel 
sure that he did not. For mediation the British Gov- 
ernment was always ready, as well it might be, con- 
sidering the loss and suffering to which the war was 
exposing its people. 

The British Government was upbraided for recogniz- 
ing the belligerency of the South. Did not the North 
from the outset recognize the belligerency of the South 
and treat its soldiers as entitled to all the laws, human- 
ities, and courtesies of war ? It called the South rebels ; 

P Robert Banks Jenkinson, second Earl of Liverpool. 1770- 
1828.] 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 325 

but did it, during the war, ever treat a single South- 
erner as a rebel ? 

Had the French Emperor chosen, in pursuance of 
his own designs, to intervene on the side of the South, 
England could not have been permitted to intervene 
on the side of the North. The opposition would have 
been far too strong. It is not unlikely that the North 
owed a good deal to the attitude of Russia, whatever 
the motive of that attitude may have been. 

At this critical time we were unlucky in our Foreign 
Minister. Lord Russell's diplomatic manner was as 
bad as possible. It was haughty, unconciliatory, and 
brusque. His appointment to the Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs was a striking instance of the tendency of party 
Government, in distributing the high offices among 
the party leaders, to put the square man in the round 
hole. He apologized for his want of courtesy frankly, 
but late. We were lucky, on the other hand, in having, 
as the American Ambassador, Mr. Adams, ^ whose bear- 
ing throughout was excellent, and who, to the pride of 
aristocracy, could oppose the dignity of an illustrious 
line. Mr. Adams' temper must have been tried. He 
certainly was not exposed during those years to the 
social allurements, under the sweet but emasculating 
influence of which American Ambassadors to England 
are apt to fall. 

In the course of the struggle I spent some pleasant 

[1 Charles Francis Adams, United States Minister to England. 
1861-1868.1 



326 REMINISCENCES 

days with Thomas Potter at his house, Buel Hill, near 
Manchester, and enjoyed the advantage of seeing the 
life of a great centre of industry and of intercourse 
with Manchester men. Potter in those days was very 
opulent. His grapery was famous, and on New Year's 
Day we eat the grapes of the old and those of the new 
year off the same dish. He stood nearly alone among 
the magnates of Manchester on the side of the North. 
With most of them Cotton was King. 

My acquaintance with the land of manufactures 
extended. I saw a good deal of it at Bradford, as the 
guest of my very dear friends Robert and Samuel Kell,^ 
and afterwards at Rochdale, where Bright's home and 
works were, Nottingham, and Leeds. Machinery has 
added vastly to the wealth, would we could say with 
confidence to the happiness, of the world. Factory 
hands are human hammers and spindles ; they can feel 
no interest in their work ; they do not even see it in its 

[1 Robert and Samuel Kell were prosperous cloth manufacturers 
of Bradford, their firm's name being Schwann, Kell, and Company. 
Mr. Frederic Harrison tells me that they were "ardent Radicals, 
Free Church and Social Reform enthusiasts ; men of great weight 
and high character amongst the Yorkshire Reformers of the sixties 
and seventies ; stout supporters of Edward Miall, Alfred Illing- 
worth, etc." — Samuel Copeland Kell, the elder brother, was born 
in 1812 and died at Bradford on May the 20th, 1869 ; Robert died on 
December the 13th, 1894. They were sons of the Rev. Robert Kell, 
a Unitarian minister. The Bradford Observer of December the 14th, 
1894, contains a long and sympathetic obituary notice of Robert, 
who seems to have been the more prominent and influential. — 
For much of this information I am indebted to widespread inquiries 
instituted through the courtesy of Mr. J. Rankine Finlayson, of 
Manchester.] 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 327 

finished state ; their abodes are dismal ; their lives are 
monotonous. They can hardly be blamed either for 
addiction to sensual enjoyments or for readiness to 
listen to any Karl Marx who tells them that they ought 
to have more pay. Socially they are quite cut off 
from their employers, whose mansions, perhaps, in 
their Sunday stroll in the suburbs, they see with no 
friendly eye. Anything that could create a feeling of 
partnership between employer and employed would be 
the greatest of blessings, but nothing in that way as yet 
seems to have had much success. The master looks 
for his gains to the future; the mechanic wants his 
wages to-day. 

Saltaire,^ in which I for a time held an honorary 
office, was not successful. It was furnished apparently 
with everything that could make its denizens happy. 
But they kicked against every restriction and seemed 
to feel that they were not free. It was the same with 
Pullman, the model factory village near Chicago. 
Some sort of partnership giving the men an interest 
in their work seems alone likely to be the cure. 

In 1864, when the war was drawing to a close, I 
paid a visit to the United States charged with the 
sympathy of Bright, Cobden, and other British friends 
of the North as a little antidote to the venom of the 
too powerful Times. I was desired at the same time 
to report on the real state of affairs. Those were the 

[' A little socialistic town in the West Riding of Yorkshire three 
miles from Bradford, founded by Sir Titus Salt in 1853.] 



328 REMINISCENCES 

days before the cable, and we were still imperfectly 
informed, especially on the vital question whether the 
West was acting heartily with the North or, as the 
friends of the South averred, was a reluctant partner in 
the struggle. I was also curious to see the Civil War. 

The first thing that struck me was that there was 
no civil war to be seen. The war was between two 
nations, formed by an inevitable disruption, and in 
the Northern, which was the invading nation, though 
war was visibly on foot, and all minds and papers were 
full of it, life was undisturbed. In the Border States 
alone, which were the borderland between freedom 
and slavery, was there anything like Civil War. Social 
intercourse, therefore, went on as pleasantly as usual, 
and my enjoyment of it was complete. 

My introductions were very helpful to me. I saw 
and heard all that there was to be seen or heard, and 
met eminent men not a few. I landed at Boston, after 
what was thought a good passage of thirteen days, 
under the kind command of Captain Anderson, who 
afterwards laid the Atlantic Cable. I was at the 
Tremont Hotel. The card was sent up to me of Mr. 
Loring,^ the name of a U. E. Loyalist family connected 
with my family by marriage.^ The parlour of the hotel 

[* Charles Loring, a weU-known member of the Boston Bar. 
Born in Boston, 1794 ; an orator and an author. Died in 1868.] 

[2 Ann Smith, sister of Dr. Richard Pritchard Smith (Gold win 
Smith's father), married Major Robert Loring on the 19th of July, 
1828. They sailed for Canada on August the 26th of the same 
year.] 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 329 

I found full of people, among whom I at once identified 
Mr. Loring by his striking likeness to my connections. 
Going up to him, I thanked him for his call, which I 
presumed had been made at the suggestion of my 
relatives. To my surprise, he had never heard of them. 
The family had been divided by the Revolution, the 
Whig branch remaining at Boston, the Tory branch 
emigrating to Canada. So lasting are family features. 
I afterwards saw in the house of Commissioner Loring 
at Washington what I should at once have taken for 
the portrait of my cousin had I not been told that it 
was the beautiful Mrs. Loring who won the heart of 
General Howe. I was once introduced to a Cecil 
whose likeness to my old comrade^ on the Saturday 
was so strong as to make me say that introduction was 
almost needless. He replied that he was not of the 
Salisbury but of the Exeter branch of Cecil, and that 
there had been no intermarriage between the branches 
since the time of Elizabeth. 

My friendships are, saving my marriage, the great 
events of my life ; and of my friendships none is more 
dear than that with Charles Eliot Norton,^ who was my 
host, more than hospitable, at Cambridge. He com- 
bined the highest European culture with the most 
fervent love of his own country. That his patriotism 

[1 Lord Robert Cecil, afterwards third Marquess of Salisbury.] 
P Charles Eliot Norton, born at Cambridge, Mass., in 1827 ; 
editor (with J. R. Lowell) of the North American Review from 
1864 to 1868 ; Professor of History at Harvard University ; author 
of many works. Died October the 21st, 1908.] 



330 REMINISCENCES 

was of the best brand he has since shown by doing his 
best to save his country from the gulf of Imperiahst 
folly and wickedness towards which evil men have been 
dragging her/ Other Boston friends, never to be for- 
gotten, were Mr. Charles Loring above mentioned, and 
Mr, J. M. Forbes,^ both of whom showed how in a Re- 
public a man might be a great citizen without being a 
professional politician. Of this, Mr. Forbes especially 
was a striking example. He was one of the leaders 
of Boston commerce. He went as an informal envoy 
of the North to England during the war. He did not 
go into politics, which, as they are managed, would have 
been repellent to his honest and generous nature; but 
he did go with all his heart and soul into every great 
public cause. Whenever public good was to be pro- 
moted or public evil to be combated, he exerted him- 
self with an ardour which could not have been exceeded 
if a Prime Ministership or a Dukedom had been his 
prize. He was a great citizen ; a character within the 
reach of some who could not succeed in politics if they 
would and would not if they could. Forbes was one of 
the liveliest and most entertaining of hosts and com- 
panions. Bright were the days I spent with him in 
his house with his family circle at Milton Hill or at 
his hunting-box in the island of Naushon. He had a 

[1 Referring, I suppose, to the American war with Spain, and the 
annexation of the Philippines.] 

P John Murray Forbes, born in 1813, engaged in mercantile pur- 
suits, ship-building, and in railway and financial interests ; died in 
1898.1 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 331 

deer forest on the island of Naushon, where I shot a 
deer. I did not kill it ; it had to be killed, and I never 
would shoot another. Under Mr. Forbes' roof I met 
Emerson. I of course looked with interest on a man 
whose name and influence were so great. Emerson's 
character was undoubtedly fine and his influence was 
very good. But I cannot honestly say that I ever got 
much from his writings. I can find no system; I 
find only aphorisms ; an avalanche, as it were, of uncon- 
nected pebbles of thought, some of them transparent, 
some translucent, some to me opaque. Carlyle intro- 
duced Emerson to the British public as one who brought 
new fire from the empyrean. But the two men in 
genius were leagues apart, and Carlyle at last found the 
new fire a bore. George Venables, calling one evening 
on Carlyle at Chelsea, found himself received with 
extraordinary warmth, the reason of which Mrs. Car- 
lyle explained by exclaiming, ''Oh, we were afraid it 
was Emerson." I heard Emerson lecture. Now and 
then he shot a telling bolt. The rest of his discourse 
to me was almost darkness. I heard him read his 
own poetry aloud, but it remained as obscure to me 
as before. Certain, however, it is that, by whatever 
means, he was inspiring and an elevating influence in 
his day ; which was the critical time, when. New Eng- 
land Puritanism having lost its power, there was press- 
ing need of something to maintain spiritual life. Long- 
fellow also I met, of course, with interest, and he was 
most attractive as a man, though I can hardly credit 



332 REMINISCENCES 

him with anything more than sweetness as a poet. 
Bryant Hves by his ''Waterfowl," and almost by that 
alone. Poe had poetic genius if he had only taken 
more care of it and of himself. Excepting him, can it 
be said that America has produced a poet? Perhaps 
America might ask whether at this time there is such a 
thing as a true poet in the world. 

Lowell, whom I also met, was in those days very 
anti-British. We could not greatly complain, if the 
feeling of the ruling class in England was taken to be 
that of the nation, and resented as such. The Times, 
from its immense ascendency as a journal, was naturally 
regarded as the great organ of British opinion, and 
nothing could be more galling to American patriotism 
than its attacks. From their English visitor the cour- 
tesy of the Americans concealed any feeling they might 
have against his country. However, among the best of 
them there was still a lurking affection for the old land, 
and sorrow rather than anger at her defection from the 
good cause. At Mr. Loring's on Thanksgiving Day, 
our host, though one at least of his family was a soldier 
on the Northern side, gave as a toast "The President 
of the United States and the Queen of England." 

Pleasant and instructive too were the days which 
I spent with Bancroft,^ the historian, in his Newport 

[1 George Bancroft, the American historian, statesman, and diplo- 
matist ; tutor of Greek at Harvard ; Secretary of the Navy, 1845- 
1846 ; United States Minister to England, 1846-1849 ; Minister at 
Berlin, 1867-1874. Wrote a " History of the United States " in ten 
volumes. Born in 1800 ; died 1891.] 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 333 

villa. He had been long in public life, and had known 
Jackson, whom he described, to my surprise, as mild 
by nature and putting himself into a rage only when 
it would serve a purpose. I went with Bancroft to a 
festival at Brown University in Providence. The ban- 
quet was in a marquee ; there was a high wind ; the 
canvas flapped; and the speeches could not be heard. 
I was green enough not to foresee that I should 
be called upon for a speech. Otherwise the speech 
would have been written. Called upon I was, and 
when I had done a reporter told me that I had been 
inaudible, and asked me for my notes. I had no notes 
to give him. The boat was waiting. The reporter 
made a speech for me which I dare say was better than 
my own, but certainly was not my own, and took me 
considerably aback when I read it in the paper next 
morning. The demand for speeches, which I was by 
nature wholly incapable of supplying, was the one 
serious drawback of my American tour. 

With Bancroft I renewed my acquaintance at Wash- 
ington in his last days, and made up his whist-table. 
As a politician he was said to have rather overrated 
democracy and too much idolized 'Hhe dear people." 
His " History of the United States" is in somewhat Fourth 
of July style, as was to be expected in that day; but 
it is a considerable work ; easy reading, and not unfair 
or in bad taste for its time. 

Any doubt as to the hearty participation of the 
Western States in the struggle for the Union was soon 



334 REMINISCENCES 

set at rest. If the North had hung back, the West 
would have gone on. By the stalwart yeomen of the 
Western States under Grant the tide was first turned 
in favour of the North and victory was in the end 
mainly won. Patriotic enthusiasm and the spirit of 
self-sacrifice were certainly intense and general. The 
national character at that time rose to a moral height 
which has not since been sustained. The Republican 
party, as a body, remains the same, with the name 
unchanged. But how changed is the spirit ! How 
unlike is this league of log-rolling monopolists to the 
patriot democracy headed by Lincoln in the days of 
the War ! 

It was for the Union rather than against slavery 
that the North in general appeared to me to be fighting. 
When the people were asked the cause, the usual an- 
swer was "to uphold the law." Slavery was the object 
of hostility chiefly because it was the cause of disrup- 
tion. This was the case especially with the officers of 
the army, among whom the feeling against slavery 
was not strong. It was partly a sense of this, I believe, 
which caused Lincoln to hesitate in proclaiming eman- 
cipation. Garrison,^ on the other hand, and the thor- 
ough-going Abolitionists before the war would have 
been glad to renounce the ''covenant with hell" and 
let the Slave States go. This, however, was Garrison's 

[1 William Lloyd Garrison, bom in 1805 ; a printer and journalist ; 
founder of the first Abolition Society ; President of the American 
Anti-Slavery Society. Died in 1879.] 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 335 

hour of victory after a life of devotion and martyrdom. 
Soon he was to stand at Charleston triumphant at the 
grave of Calhoun. A sudden change is a shock, even 
though it be from persecution to popularity. When 
a complimentary watch was presented to Garrison, he 
said that he felt at a loss for appropriate words ; had it 
been a rotten egg, he would have known exactly what 
to say. Other men probably have had the same feeling. 
It seemed to me that at the North generally there 
was a remarkable absence of truculence. The deter- 
mination was fixed to subdue the South and restore 
the Union. But I heard few expressions of thirst for 
revenge such as were heard the other day from Loyalists 
at Cape Town.^ Prisoners of war were well treated. 
I visited the prison-camp at Chicago and saw that its 
inmates were well fed and were suffering no hardships 
beyond that of confinement. If they died under im- 
prisonment, it was as the caged eagle dies. I visited 
the prisoners' hospital at Baltimore, went through 
every part of it, and satisfied myself that the treatment 
was good. My visit was unannounced. On Thanks- 
giving Day the table was spread with the good things 
of the season. I record this as an answer to the charges 
of cruelty rife at the time in England. It was the more 
notable as the treatment of Federal prisoners in some 
of the Confederate prisons was known to be most 
inhuman. In the Andersonville prison-camp it was 
devilish, and such as no want of resources on the part 
[» An allusion, of course, to the Boer war.] 



336 REMINISCENCES 

of the captors could excuse. I saw at Annapolis the 
first batch of prisoners exchanged from Andersonville. 
They were living skeletons. I put my finger and thumb 
round the upper part of a large man's arm. It must 
be said that Grant was partly responsible, if, as was 
understood, he refused to exchange prisoners. No 
laws of war surely can warrant the retention of prisoners 
whom a captor cannot feed. They ought to be released 
on parole. 

Nor did it seem to me that internal repression was 
carried by the Washington Government beyond the 
real necessities of the case, considering that there was 
at the North a party openly sympathizing with the 
South and doing its best to weaken the arm of Govern- 
ment in the war. Great liberty was allowed to the 
press, and the elections were perfectly free. I was at 
Boston at the time of the second election of Lincoln. 
Party feeling of course ran very high, yet the Demo- 
cratic minority was allowed without molestation to 
hold its meetings, hang out its banners across the 
street, and march in its torchlight processions. Nor 
on that day was there serious disturbance, so far as I 
could learn, in any one of the Northern States. Wlien 
the Irish rose against the draft in New York and filled 
the city with murderous outrage, they no doubt were 
ruthlessly put down. 

Even social ties were less broken than might have 
been expected. At Boston I met men of opposite par- 
ties under the same roof. At Baltimore, which was 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 337 

close upon the scene of the war, and had in it a strong 
pro-slavery party, by which Lee, if he had conquered 
at Gettysburg, would have found the banquet spread 
for him, the feeling was more bitter, and the social 
severance was complete. Yet Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy, 
whose guest I was, though ardent Unionists, interested 
themselves actively in obtaining pardon for a lady who 
had been convicted, not for the first time, of corre- 
spondence with a Confederate raider. 

My visit to the prison-camp at Chicago was paid 
under the wing of the Roman Catholic Bishop, with 
whom I had some intercourse. A most highly culti- 
vated and very attractive man he was. His gifts had 
made him a Bishop at the earliest possible age. His 
liberality surprised and almost startled me. Inquiring 
for him when I afterwards came to America, I was 
told that mental illness had caused his retirement from 
his See. His brain had probably been overstrained. 
Had his Liberalism led him too far? 

The greatest sign of disturbance was the depreciated 
paper currency. The issue of this was probably a 
breach of the Constitution, which withholds from the 
Federal Government all that it does not give, and does 
not give the power of issuing paper money. It would 
have been better and cheaper to borrow at the current 
rate, whatever that rate might be. The return to specie 
in the end probably cost a good deal more than the loan 
would have cost, besides the disturbance of commerce 
and industry. I had a talk on the subject with 



338 REMINISCENCES 

Mr. Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, on whom 
I totally failed to impress the orthodox doctrine. He 
must have understood the question better than I did. 
Perhaps he saw the truth, but held that financial prin- 
ciple must give way to urgent necessity. Fluctuation 
of wages could not fail especially to be felt. I believe 
there had been no very serious strikes before that time. 
Lincoln was comically ignorant of economy. He is 
said, when there was lack of money, to have asked 
whether the printing-press had given out. But it is 
surprising how many people have a lurking idea that 
the bank bill is money, not clearly seeing that it is 
a promissory note, and that when it changes hands 
specie passes at the bank of issue from the credit of the 
giver to that of the taker. The illusion is helped by 
the ambiguous word ''currency." One consequence is 
that the Government, whose proper business is only 
to stamp the coin, fancies that it is specially concerned 
in the banking trade, and entitled to the profits of the 
paper circulation. Let me say, however, that I never 
doubted that the paper promises of the United States 
would be redeemed. After my return to England, I 
found myself in a large party alone maintaining that 
the Americans would pay in gold. I had a higher 
opinion of their honesty than the rest of the company ; 
but I felt sure that their commercial instinct would 

[' Salmon Portland Chase, United States Senator from Ohio, 
1849-1855 ; Governor of Ohio, 1856-1860 ; Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, 1861-1864 ; Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 1864-1873. 
Born 1808 ; died 1873.] 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 339 

preserve them from a ruinous forfeiture of their credit. 
Had my works been hke my faith, had I invested largely 
in American paper when it was down to forty, my 
visit would have been profitable as well as instructive. 
Gettysburg had been fought, Vicksburg had fallen, 
the murderous campaign of the Wilderness had come 
to its close. Grant was before Petersburg, and the 
Confederacy was in its last ditch. I was taken to the 
scene of war by General Benjamin Butler,' to whom I, 
at all events, owe gratitude. We went up the Potomac 
from Washington, starting coveys of ducks which had 
enjoyed a respite from shooting while the sportsmen 
were shooting each other. Landing, we got on horse- 
back to ride to Butler's quarters. On the way we 
espied some men in the bush, pretty near at hand, who 
were pronounced to be Confederate riflemen. One 
of the party, a military man, was inclined to retire and 
re-form. But there was no danger. I afterwards 
found that where nothing particular was going on, I 
could safely get upon the parapet and look down upon 
the Confederates changing guard. The humanities 
and chivalries of war were well observed on both sides, 
except perhaps by the Southerners towards negro 
soldiers. This proved to me that there was a sun behind 
the cloud, and that the strife, bitter as it was at the 
time, would end in reconciliation. I was confirmed in 
this forecast by hearing that a '^sesesh " lady at Balti- 
more had eloped with a Yankee trumpeter. 

P See note on page 348, infra.] 



340 REMINISCENCES 

A Federal commander with the local forces found 
himself in a very tight place. It was a question whether 
he should waste blood by fighting or surrender. He 
surprised the Confederate by paying him a \dsit under 
a flag of truce and asking him for his candid opinion 
upon the case, sajdng that he could make a good fight, 
but did not wish to sacrifice the lives of his people in 
vain. The Confederate showed him round the position 
and then gave him his candid opinion, which was that 
if his command formed part of a general plan of opera- 
tions, he was bound to fight; otherwise he might 
with propriety surrender. I had this story "vsdth names 
of persons and place, which I have forgotten. I can 
only say that it was likely and illustrative of American 
character and of the feelings of the military men on 
the two sides towards each other, which never was so 
bitter as those of the civilians. 

If the military leaders of the South, after their defeat, 
instead of being treated as rebels could have been taken 
into counsel in the work of reconstruction, the result, 
though it could hardly have solved the desperate negro 
problem, might have been far better than it was. 
But, as I have said, neither Lincoln nor any one else 
seemed at that time to understand that this was not 
a rebellion, but the inevitable parting of two groups of 
States, radically antagonistic in their social and political 
structure, which had been long held together in uneasy 
imion by hollow compromise, but had obeyed their 
natural impulses at last. 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 341 

When I was in the camp the two armies lay facing 
each other in hnes at Petersburg. Richmond could 
almost be seen through a telescope, and the last move 
on the chess-board was evidently at hand, though the 
correspondent of the Times kept assuring his employers 
that Confederate victory was near. Sherman was 
setting out on his famous march through the heart of 
the Confederacy; Sheridan was ending the business in 
the Shenandoah Valley; and overwhelming forces 
were presently to close upon Lee. Against Grant alone 
Lee might probably have maintained himself. His 
lines were strong; an attempt to storm them after 
mining failed; nor were his supplies either of food or 
ammunition exhausted. Prisoners and deserters who 
came in were in good case. They had bread enough, 
though not coffee. Confederate batteries were pretty 
lavish of shot and shell, notwithstanding that the 
Confederacy could not manufacture and that its trans- 
portation had broken down. 

The Federal army was evidently sound and abun- 
dantly supplied. Stories of large foreign and Indian 
enlistments were fictions. There were Germans and 
other immigrants, no doubt; but they had made the 
United States their country. There was one Indian, 
not with a tomahawk, but with the usual side-arms of an 
officer. In the course of the war there were, as Sir 
John Macdonald* told me, forty thousand Canadian 
enlistments. But of these men, again, many probably 
[1 Prime Minister of Canada, 1867-1873 ; 1878-1891.] 



342 REMINISCENCES 

adopted the United States as their country. Bounties 
were high, and under the draft system there were a great 
many substitutes, giving occasion for not a few jokes. 
A party of returned soldiers, it was said, were recounting 
their deeds and sufferings in the national cause, when 
a voice broke in with *' Ah ! you boast of your deeds and 
sufferings, but after all you returned. I did not return. 
The bones of my substitute are whitening the bank of 
the James River." 

The country was thickly wooded and blind. Grant 
told me that in action he could not see the length of a 
brigade. A charge or even a formation of cavalry would 
have been impracticable. There could be no sweeping 
up of prisoners at the end of a battle. The defeated 
army fell back through the woods, and thus battles were 
comparatively indecisive. 

Grant * was a silent, somewhat saturnine man, very 
simple in his demeanour and habits. His quarters were 
a common tent, in which was a chest with his kit marked 
''U. S. G., U.S.A." He was said to dislike military 
parade and even military music. He seems to have 
been less of a strategist than of a sledge-hammer of war, 
pounding his enemy by his blows, with little regard for 
the expenditure of life. He may be almost said to have 
professed the strategy of attrition. Of this the bloody 
battle of Cold Harbour, fought in a blind country, was 
a signal instance. Why the battles of the Wilderness 
were fought at all, when the plan apparently was to hold 
[» The great Northern General. 1822-1885.] 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 343 

Lee in the North while Sherman pierced the Confed- 
eracy to the heart, was a question to which I never could 
get a clear answer from a soldier. But there can be no 
doubt as to the inestimable service which Grant by his 
iron resolution and inflexible tenacity did the cause. 
His great victory at Fort Donelson was the first light of 
hope in a darkness which seemed almost that of despair. 
He also rendered a great service by firmly taking the 
whole war into his own hands and out of those of the 
politicians, whose meddling had done much mischief. 
A remark to the contrary in an article of the New York 
Sun on ''The Political Element in War-Power" was 
from the pen of the editor, not that of the writer.^ His 
generosity Grant showed by handing back to Sherman, 
when the attack on Vicksburg had succeeded, the pro- 
test which at the Council-of-War Sherman had put in 
against the attack. His chivalry was shown by his 
demeanour to Lee after the surrender at Appomattox, 
when he treated Lee at once as a friend and refused to 
receive his sword. His good feeling and his good sense 
together he showed by at once paroling the beaten 
army, providing for their wants, and giving them back 
their horses ''for the Fall Ploughing." He nobly de- 
clined to enter Richmond as a conqueror. 

Pitchforked into the Presidency by the passion of 

the Americans for military glory, Grant, being totally 

without political experience, of course failed. The only 

political quality which he had was resolution, which he 

[' See note on page 356.] 



344 REMINISCENCES 

once at least opposed, under good advice, to his honest 
and mischievous legislation. He had a fatal notion that 
supporting public delinquents of his own party was 
standing by comrades under fire. Between this rough 
soldier and such a man as Charles Sumner,' with his 
high-stepping culture and lofty self-esteem, antipathy 
was sure to be strong. Some one, to please Grant, was 
decrying Sumner to him, saying that Sunaner was a 
Free-thinker and did not even believe in the Bible. 
''Well," said Grant, ''I suppose he didn't write it." 
Wellington, between whom and Grant there was some 
resemblance, also once in his life said a good thing. 
When he appeared at the Court of the Restoration the 
Marshals of the Empire turned their backs on him. 
The King apologized to him for their rudeness. 
"N'importe, Sire, c'est leur habitude," was Welling- 
' ton's reply. 

I met Grant and Mrs. Grant some years afterwards 
at a garden party at Lambeth Palace.^ A curiously 
rustic couple they looked in that assemblage of fashion. 
Grant was then touring under the auspices of politicians 
who wanted a third term for him and thought it might 
be secured by presenting him to the world's homage. 
No showman could have had a worse lion. Stanley, 
who showed Grant over Westminster Abbey, said that 
of all men of rank whom he had met Grant "was the 

P Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 1861-1871. 
He was removed from it for his opposition to Grant's policy regard- 
ing the Annexation of San Domingo.] 

[^ The residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury.] 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 345 

most boorish." Grant was no doubt unappreciative 
of antiquities, and Stanley had no opportunity of diving 
into the character of the man. 

Sherman, who was accounted the greatest strategist 
on the side of the North, though some put Thomas ^ 
first, I met some years afterwards at a dinner of the 
Chamber of Commerce at New York. He was then, 
I thought, showing the effect of years. I may mention 
in passing that I did not, as the Quarterly Review stated, 
at that time or on any other pubhc occasion in the 
United States, talk annexation, and that Sherman, 
whom the Quarterly gleefully represented as having 
rebuked me, spoke before me, so that nothing he said 
could have reference to my speech. Nor, in a conversa- 
tion which I had with him afterwards, did he take the 
slightest exception to anything I had said. The subject 
was Reciprocity, to which my remarks were confined.^ 

[1 General George Henry Thomas, the defender of Chickamauga. 
1816-1870.] 

[2 Mr. Goldwin Smith's speech was delivered at the banquet of 
the Chamber of Commerce of the State of New York, on the 20th 
of November, 1888, in response to the toast "Our Relations with 
Canada — May all our differences be amicably adjusted, and our 
intercourse become increasingly reciprocal and profitable." In 
the course of this speech occur the following remarks: "There 
are some of us, however, who look forward to a more complete and 
lasting settlement of all commercial questions between Canada 
and the United States than any Fisheries Treaty can afford. . . . 
The Fisheries dispute will be at rest forever, when the fisheries and 
the coasting trade are common to us aU ... there are . . . who be- 
Ueve that the English-speaking race upon this continent will some day 
be one people." It was afterwards printed in pamphlet form, with 
the imprint: "New-York: Press of the Chamber of Commerce. 
1888." 



346 REMINISCENCES 

I also some years afterwards at Philadelphia made 

The animadversions of the Quarterly Review (Vol. 170, No. 340, 
Art. X, pp. 537 and 538) are as follows : — 

"There are two distinguished British subjects residing in Canada, 
who, from the prominence given in the English press to their ut- 
terances, have a certain notoriety on this side the Atlantic as favour- 
ing the annexation of Canada to the United States. Mr. Goldwin 
Smith, and Mr. Honore Mercier, the French Catholic Premier of 
Quebec, not unfrequently deliver sentiments which, in the days 
when the term was in usage, might have qualified them for the title 
of rebels ; but we are perfectly certain that either of those eminent 
personages would much prefer to be called a rebel than to be coupled 
and associated in the minds of men with the other. Of Mr. Goldwin 
Smith we would at once say that his motives are as disinterested 
as they are mischievous ; but though mischievous his motives, the 
mischief he effects is infinitesimal, — that is to say, it amounts to 
the harm which ensues from the printing in large type of his letters, 
advocating the disruption of the Empire, in London journals which 
profess Imperialism. Though we reprobate his views, we think that 
the old Regius Professor is often unjustly treated. People who 
do not know him derive their impression of the man from Mr. 
Disraeli's rancorous portrait of him in 'Lothair'; he is there de- 
scribed as talking a language of ' ornate jargon ' ; as a matter of fact 
his diction is severe compared to Mr. Disraeli's, and we regret that 
his plausible sentiments are not veiled in jargon, but are on the 
contrary expressed in admirable and forcible English. He has lately 
had his revenge on his limner in a recent oration at New York, 
when he emphasized his offer of Canada to the American nation 
by an unearthed quotation from an ancient letter of Lord Beacons- 
field, who once seems to have written mysteriously that 'the Colo- 
nies, and Canada in particular, were millstones round our necks, 
but that they would soon be independent.' It is, moreover, unjust 
to ascribe Mr. Goldwin Smith's disaffection to any disappointments 
he may have encountered in his Canadian career, as we find Sir 
George Bowen describing in 1862 his schemes for the emancipation 
of Australia. It ought, however, to be put on record, for the benefit 
of those who are perturbed by his letters to the English papers, 
that Mr. Goldwin Smith has no following whatever in Canada, and 
no disciples across the frontier of his unpatriotic propaganda. 
Around his home in Toronto he has hosts of personal friends and 
not one political ally. In the United States an ungrateful lack of 
warmth greets his harangues, in which he inveighs against the un- 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 347 

the acquaintance of Meade/ who appeared to me a high- 
minded soldier and a thorough gentleman. I could well 
believe that he had done good service in restoring the 
tone of the Army of the Potomac when it had been run 
down under Hooker.^ Of Meade's generalship I am of 
course incompetent to form a judgment. It may be 
that after the repulse of Lee's attack at Gettysburg, 
he ought to have ordered his line to advance. Had he 
attacked Lee in the position which Lee afterwards took 
up, he might have lost what he had won at Gettysburg, 
so great had become the superiority of the defence over 
the attack. He was very candid in saying that at 
Gettysburg Lee had thrown away his chances, and that 
had he mancBuvred instead of rushing against a strong 
position, the result would not have been so sure. He 
said not a word against Grant, but showed, I thought, 
that he did not admire the strategy of attrition. 
Lee^ has been pronounced a great strategist by those 

natural division of a continent which Providence destined to be one. 
Not long ago he was about to discourse in this wise to an American 
audience at a banquet, when the veteran General Sherman, perhaps 
anticipating, arose and said : ' The American people want not an- 
other rood of bad land in Mexico or of good land in Canada.' After 
that, Mr. Goldwin Smith's customary periods about 'one flag, one 
language, one literature,' lacked a little of their usual sonority."] 

[' General George Gordon Meade, Commander of the Army of 
the Potomac from June, 1863, till the close of the war. 1815- 
1872.] 

[2 General Joseph Hooker was appointed to the command of the 
Army of the Potomac in January, 1863 ; he was relieved of his com- 
mand in the following June.] 

[^ Robert Edward Lee, the great Confederate General. 1807- 
1870.J 



348 REMINISCENCES 

whose judgment cannot be disputed, though only by 
an American writer has he been put above Marlborough. 
He can scarcely be said to have encountered an op- 
ponent worthy of him before Gettysburg. His two 
offensive movements were unsuccessful ; the first end- 
ing with Antietam, the second with Gettysburg. But 
he was constrained to make them by the nature of the 
war, which was a monster siege of the South by the 
North. Lee sallied in hopes of shaking off the besieger, 
gathering supplies, and at the same time calling forth 
political sympathy and support at the North. It seems 
to be admitted that he did a desperate thing at Gettys- 
burg in ordering the advance of his infantry over more 
than half a mile of open ground against a formidable 
position with a powerful artillery. He had done some- 
thing of the same kind at Malvern Heights, with the 
same disastrous result. General Lee seems to have 
fought, not against the Union, nor for slavery; but 
simply as a liegeman of his State. His character evi- 
dently was fine, and well would it have been both for 
South and North if in Reconstruction his voice could 
have been heard. 

The name of General Benjamin Butler,^ whose guest I 
was at the Camp, had been execrated because he was 
supposed, as Commandant of New Orleans, to have put 
forth a proclamation threatening to give up the women 
of that city to the license of his soldiery. The charge 

[1 Benjamin FrankUn Butler, commanded the Army of the James ; 
military governor of New Orleans. 1818-1893.] 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 349 

was unfounded. Butler was commanding the Federal 
garrison of a great city with a population noted for 
violence, turbulence, and fanatical devotion to the 
cause of slavery. The women, whose passions, as usual, 
were the fiercest, insulted his men on the streets, and 
there was constant danger of an affray which would 
have led to bloodshed. To avert this, Butler threatened 
the women, if their insults were repeated, with being 
sent to the lock-up house like common women of the 
town. His proclamation was coarse, as anything of 
his was likely to be ; but it did not bear, nor would any 
unprejudiced reader have taken it to bear, the odious 
sense ascribed to it. Butler was a curious personage. 
He was exceedingly ugly, and squinted horribly ; but 
his face and figure were an incarnation of rude force, 
and reminded you of a steam ram. Unscrupulous he 
was in the highest degree. But I believe his ruling 
passion was notoriety rather than gain. Those who 
were put on his track at New Orleans found, as I was 
told at the time, no trace of his stealing for himself, 
though he had winked at the doings of subordinates. 
He was evidently a loving husband to his amiable wife 
and a loving father to his beautiful daughter. He was 
evidently popular with his aides and with his men. He 
wanted to be President. This was his motive in his 
attack on Andrew Johnson ^ and in his advocacy of 
repudiation. In his advocacy of repudiation he was 

[1 Andrew Johnson, seventeenth President of the United States. 
1808-1875.] 



350 REMINISCENCES 

misled, as the unscrupulous are apt to be, by under- 
rating the general honesty of the world. 

Butler was a very sociable and amusing companion. 
He had stories to tell of himself. When he was com- 
manding at New Orleans, to prevent an outbreak, he 
had issued a general order requiring all citizens in pos- 
session of arms to deliver them up at headquarters. 
A citizen was found possessing arms in contravention 
of the order, and with his arms was brought before the 
General. He pleaded that the arms were only family 
relics. ''That, General, was my father's sword." 
'' Wlien did your father die. Sir?" ''In 1858." "Then 
he must have worn the sword in hell, Sir, for it was 
made in 1859." 

Ben had been a first-rate criminal counsel — Old 
Bailey counsel, as the English would say, and he brought 
his sharp practice to bear upon the question as to the 
principle on which the negro should be treated by the 
Northern armies; emancipation having not yet been 
proclaimed. Ben astutely advised that the negro, as 
his labour sustained the enemy, should be treated as 
contraband of war. 

As a General, Ben was not a success. Grant said that 
he was "bottled up" in the bend of the James River 
where he was carrying on some engineering operations 
suggested by his restlessly inventive genius. He did 
me the honour to impart to me his plan for blowing up 
Fort Fisher, which had obstinately resisted Federal 
attack, by running ashore under it a gunboat loaded 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 351 

with powder. I could not help venturing to suggest 
the general ineffectiveness of powder fired in the open 
air. But Butler thought he had scientific proof that 
the displacement of air would be so great that Fort 
Fisher would cease to exist. The experiment was 
afterwards made, and the breaking of two or three 
windows in the Fort was the only result. 

I had first fallen in with Butler at New York, whither 
he had been summoned at the time of Lincoln's second 
election with troops to prevent a second rising of Irish 
against the draft. He did not land his troops, but 
came ashore himself with his staff, called the leaders of 
the Irish before him, told them that he was glad to 
have the pleasure of meeting them, and that if any dis- 
turbance took place he would hold them personally 
responsible. No disturbance took place. The grateful 
city planted Butler for an evening in a hall of the Fifth 
Avenue Hotel while an endless train of citizens filed 
past him, each of them taking him by the hand. His 
hand must have been surfeited with public gratitude. 

The soldiers of the North were not only well but 
lavishly supplied. On that side the war exceeded all 
wars in its cost. It is perhaps fortunate for democracy 
that, as it is bound to treat every man well, it must find 
the luxury of war expensive. Confederate prisoners 
seemed in pretty good case, and said that, though they 
had nothing but bread, of bread they had enough. 
How they managed to supply themselves with ammuni- 
tion, of which they were lavish, in their exhausted state 



352 REMINISCENCES 

and with their railroads all dilapidated, was a mys- 
tery. 

I saw but little fighting; only just enough to impress 
me with the belief that cannon-balls and shells in the 
open field were rather ineffective, and that the rifle aimed 
at you was the really formidable weapon. The range of 
artillery, however, has greatly increased since that time. 
■ I saw the wounded in a field hospital ; and I venture 
to say that nobody who had done the same would ever 
speak lightly of war or gloat over the reports of carnage. 
The hospital arrangements seemed to me to be excellent. 
The plan adopted was that of isolated pavilions to obvi- 
ate infection. I thought of that field hospital when our 
gentlemen and ladies at Toronto were exulting over the 
slaughter of Boers in the South African War. 

From the camp on the Potomac I went back to Wash- 
ington, which in 1864 was a different place from the 
bright and beautiful city now becoming the social capi- 
tal of America. The northwestern quarter with its 
gay mansions had not been built. There was scarcely 
a house of any pretensions except the White House. 
Pennsylvania Avenue looked like a string of shabby 
villages. The sidewalks were unrepaired; the roads 
were mud-holes. Frequent on the houses were the 
advertisements of embalmment of the dead, thirteen 
thousand of whom lay in a provisional cemetery near 
the city awaiting, most of them, removal to their own 
States. For my own part, I cannot understand such 
care for the cast-off weeds of humanity. Inomediate 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 353 

return into the general frame of Nature seems to me 
the only agreeable idea connected with death. But 
the care taken for the relics of these soldiers showed 
that the army was not one of hirelings; few of the 
head-boards bore the inscription ''Unknown Holdier." 

At Washington I had the honour of being the guest 
of Mr. Seward ^ and saw the diplomatist unbend in his 
social hour. He did indeed unbend in his social hour, 
and there was no limit to the freedom of his talk. In 
those days happily social confidence was still sacred, 
and Seward might unbosom himself with the certainty 
that of his guests there was not one who would not 
deem himself degraded by repeating anything that was 
said at the social board. Seward was at the same time 
the least cautious of diplomatists, and sometimes star- 
tled the British Ambassador, Lord Lyons,^ who was 
accustomed to the reticence and impassiveness of diplo- 
matists in the Old World. He now and then risked a 
joke, w^hich was liable to be misunderstood. One of 
these jokes, something about bombarding Liverpool, 
had been made to the Duke of Newcastle, who was 
rather dry and touchy, and, being recalled at a time 
when there was gunpowder lying about, came near to 
producing an explosion. 

Crossing the mud-hole between Seward's house and 

[' William Henry Seward, Governor of New York ; United States 
Senator ; Secretary of State, 1861-1869. Bom in 1801 ; died in 
1872.] 

[2 Richard Bickerton Pemell, second Baron and first Earl Lyons, 
British Minister at Washington. 1858-1865.] 

2a 



354 REMINISCENCES 

an official building, I presented my card and found my- 
self in the presence of Abraham Lincoln. The notion 
formed of Lincoln in England had been that of a Yankee 
rail-splitter with an ungainly and grotesque figure, dis- 
playing an unfeeling le\ity by the utterance of rather 
coarse jokes, from which he did not abstain even among 
the relics of the battle-field. Ungainly and grotesque 
the figure, with its gaunt height, its shock of unkempt 
hair, and its large hands and feet, undeniably was; 
but on the face, instead of levity, sat melancholy and 
care. The little stories, in which Lincoln often wrapt 
up his reasonings and of which he told me one or two 
during our interview, were the indulgence of a Western 
habit and perhaps a relief of the overstrained mind ; as 
it were, pinches of mental snuff. Lincoln since his 
death has been deified. He has been styled the greatest 
statesman of the age. The American mind is never 
sparing of superlatives in either extreme. He had the 
wisdom which happily belongs to a perfectly honest 
and simple character. He never was misled by 
cupidity, vanity, or selfishness of any kind. He had 
also, as the result of a naturally s}TQpathetic nature, 
improved by campaign practice, a remarkable power of 
reading public sentiment and keeping himself in touch 
with what he called the plain people. His addresses 
and State papers are admirable: the simplicity and 
clearness of their style bespoke the integrity and sin- 
cerity of their author. But, as I have said, Lincoln, if 
he saw, never showed that he saw the fundamental 



AMERICAN CIVIL WAR 355 

character of the situation with which he had to deal. 
He ahvays spoke and wrote as if he took Secession to be 
a rebelHon, whereas it was a natural severance of the 
slave-owning South from the free North, social struc- 
ture having, as usual, asserted its ascendency over 
political organization. How he would have dealt with 
Reconstruction is a secret buried in his grave ; more 
wisely, it may safely be assumed, than did Charles 
Sumner and the other fiery and revengeful politicians 
into whose hands, after his death, the question passed. 
His character, whatever his theory, would have guided 
him and the State aright. In resolving to despatch 
supplies to Fort Sumter Lincoln may perhaps be said 
to have brought on war; and supreme statesmanship 
would hardly do that which in itself is little worth do- 
ing if tremendous consequences are to follow. But if 
Lincoln had any share in the failure to avert war, his 
responsibility is fully balanced by that of the Southern 
chiefs. Had Jeff Davis and his colleagues, scrupulously 
abstaining from anything like violence or insult, put 
forth a temperate and respectful manifesto, setting forth 
the proved impracticability of a political union between 
communities radically different in social structure, and 
appealing to the people of the North for acquiescence in 
a friendly separation, with full security for debts and as 
much of reciprocal privilege as national independence 
would permit, the Northern people would scarcely have 
called on the Government to go to war. 
No one could have failed to be struck by Lincoln's 



356 REMINISCENCES 

unguarded state, there being even then threats of 
assassination in the air. A desperado might easily have 
rushed past the sentinel who paced outside the door. 
When, therefore, a report of the assassination reached 
us in England, I felt at once that it would prove true. 
Let me with others bear witness that, in spite of the 
anti- American feeling which prevailed in certain classes, 
the news was received in England with general sorrow. 



Note by the Editor. 

The article on " The Political Element in War-Power " in 
the New York Sun, referred to on page 343, appeared on 
Sunday, March the 15th, 1896. It was written by Mr. Gold- 
win Smith. In it occurs the following sentence: — 

" Party politics are said to have interfered in some degree with 
military appointments and operations ; and it has even been said, 
though without the least grain of truth, that at one time Gen. Grant 
manifested a resolute determination to cut loose from Washington 
and keep the conduct of the war in his own hands." 

In the copy preserved at The Grange, a pen has been drawn 
through the words I have Italicized, and against them has 
been written, " Interpolated by Dana probably." 



CHAPTER XX 

JAMAICA 
1866 

Conflict of Races — Outbreak — Governor Eyre's Action — The 
Jamaica Committee — Chief Justice Cockburn's Charge — 
John Stuart Mill — Woman Suffrage — Thomas Hughes — 
Frederick Denison Maurice — Manchester Liberals. 

A SORT of corollary of the question between slavery 
and freedom in America was that caused by the conflict 
of races in Jamaica. The ex-slaveholder's hatred and 
fear of the emancipated slave, after long brooding, broke 
out in 1865 with terrible violence. A local and acci- 
dental affray caused by the unpopularity of a district 
magistrate was seized upon by the whites as a pre- 
text for a reign of terror, Governor Eyre^ sharing 
and giving the reins to their panic rage. Altogether 
four hundred and thirty-nine men and women were put 
to death, and the number flogged could not have been 
less than six hundred. The hangings went on for 
nearly five weeks after the outbreak. Men received 
one hundred lashes; women thirty. Many of those 
who were flogged with a cat-o'-nine-tails were women 
on the simple charge of stealing. Wire was twisted 
round the cords of the whip. There had been enmity, 

[^ Edward John Eyre, previously Lieutenant-Governor of Aur 
tigua.] 

357 



358 REMINISCENCES 

personal as well as political, between Governor Eyre 
and William Gordon, the political leader of the blacks. 
Eyre arrested Gordon at Kingston, where martial law 
did not prevail ; carried him into a district where mar- 
tial law had been proclaimed and a court-martial was 
sitting; packed the court afresh; and when even that 
packed court hesitated to put the man to death without 
evidence, himself ordered the execution. ''Murder," 
said John Bright, ''is foul; and judicial murder is the 
foulest of all." 

A Committee was formed in the interest of humanity 
and justice. We were not bloody-minded ; we did not 
want to hang Governor Eyre or care to punish him, 
otherwise than by dismissal from his Governorship, 
from which in fact he was removed. But we did wish, 
by bringing him to the bar of justice, to prove that all 
British subjects, black or white, were under the protec- 
tion of British law. We did want to vindicate human- 
ity. In this we were defeated by the sympathy of the 
Tory upper classes with arbitrary and sanguinary 
violence. A member of the House of Lords told Gov- 
ernor Eyre publicly that if his case came before them 
he would find them a friendly tribunal. The Anglican 
clergy played their usual part, confirming and strength- 
ening my opinion of them. Such was the natural 
consequence of Establishment. Carlyle, Kingsley, and 
Ruskin were of course for violence, which they took for 
strength. The calls of sentimental eunuchs like Ruskin 
for blood on this occasion, and at the time of the Indian 



JAMAICA 359 

Mutiny, made an indelible impression on my mind. The 
best fruit of our movement^ was a memorable Charge 
of Chief-Justice Cockburn against the abuse of martial 
law.^ The Chief- Justice weakened in his practical 
conclusion, but to his declaration of principles justice 
and mercy could always appeal. 

On the Jamaica Committee I met John Stuart Mill,^ 
the most strictly conscientious man, I think, that I ever 
knew. In an unhappy moment he allowed himself to be 
elected to the House of Commons, and sat night after 
night, like an image of patience, listening to debates on 
which the time of the great philosopher and economist 
was miserably wasted. His conscientiousness was car- 
ried into his habits as a speaker. His speeches were 
prepared, and he sometimes lost the thread. But he 
would not, like less scrupulous speakers, fill the gap with 
mere words; he would wait, however awkward the 
pause might be, till the thread was recovered. I have 
always looked upon him as a notable instance of the 
division which is taking place between the dogmas and 
the ethics of Christianity; the dogmas remaining with 
the orthodox, the ethics often going to the infidel. 

[1 This Charge was afterwards printed in pamphlet form. See 
"Charge of the Lord Chief Justice of England to the Grand Jury 
at the Central Criminal Court in the case of The Queen against 
Nelson and Brand. Taken from the Shorthand Writer's Notes, 
Revised and Corrected by the Lord Chief Justice. With Occa- 
sional Notes." Edited by Frederick Cockburn, Esq., of the Crown 
Office. London : William Ridgway. 1867.] 

[^Author of "A System of Logic"; "Principles of Political 
Economy" ; "Representative Government" ; "Utilitarianism" ; etc. 
1806-1873.] 



360 REMINISCENCES 

Upon the ethics it is to be hoped Christendom will re- 
unite. 

It was partly, I think, from respect to Mill that Bright 
and I signed his first petition in favour of Woman 
Suffrage. Afterwards we both withdrew; and I be- 
lieve on the same ground, because we found that the 
best representatives of the sex among our acquaintance 
were opposed to the measure. Mill's enthusiasm on this 
subject, I have always suspected, had its source in his 
personal history. He had received from his father an 
arid and heart-withering education which developed 
his intellect intensely, at the expense of his affections. 
Later in life the affections asserted a power increased 
by their long suppression. He fell platonically in love 
with the wife of his friend Mr. Taylor, and consorted 
with her in a way which he sincerely supposed her 
husband to approve. His fancy invested her with ex- 
traordinary genius. But those who knew her told me 
that her genius consisted in the faculty of readily imbib- 
ing Mill's theories and giving them back to him as her 
own. In the parts of his works which he ascribes spe- 
cially to her inspiration, no extraordinary power is shown. 
Had his book on the Subjection of Women ^ taken full 
effect, its exaggerations might have disturbed the peace 
and happiness of many homes. He did not know, or 
at least did not lay it to heart, that of the two unions 
that of the State and that of the family, that of the 
family is as essential and as sacred as that of the State. 

[I PubUshed in 1869.] 



JAMAICA 361 

Another leading member of the Jamaica Committee 
was Thomas Hughes. It is needless to say that he was 
Tom Brown grown up. Well did he deserve his statue 
at Rugby. In him all the manly, the robust, and even 
the fighting qualities of which Englishmen are proud 
were combined with perfect gentleness, tenderness, and 
humanity, as well as with the broadest liberality of 
mind. With all his vigour and courage, there was not 
the faintest odour of Jingoism about him. We became 
great friends, and I was his guest at Chester, when we 
were fighting together for the Union against Gladstone 
and Home Rule. 

jHughes had been one of the Christian Socialists, who, 
sympathizing with the Socialist desire of substituting 
co-operation for competition, tried to give it effect on 
Christian principles, while the ordinary Socialists were 
agnostics. Their attempts to set on foot co-operative 
production were failures, labour not proving able to 
dispense with the guidance or the support of capital. 
Whether they had much to do with the brilliant suc- 
cess of co-operative distribution I cannot say. But 
they certainly did something towards the mitigation of 
class bitterness. Hughes towards the end of his life was 
led by his philanthropic zeal to become the founder of a 
model colony in Tennessee. It appears that he was 
deceived in the purchase of the land. But all model 
colonies, like model villages, such as Pullman and Sal- 
taire, have failed. The people do not enter into the 
spirit of the foundation ; their object is to make their 



362 REMINISCENCES 

bread, and they fret under regulations. The matter 
caused Hughes some trouble for a time. 

In the Jamaica case, as in the case of the Indian Mu- 
tiny, when the savage passion ruled the hour, it was not 
men like Thomas Hughes, but the weak and hysterical, 
that were clamouring for violence and blood. 

The leader of the Christian Socialists was Frederick 
Maurice,^ a most sincere lover and no mean benefactor 
of his kind. He formed a circle round him by his trans- 
parent sincerity of aim and goodness of soul. His 
excellence was practical and social. As a thinker he 
lacked clearness. I have heard him in Lincoln's Inn 
Chapel preach with the utmost fervour a sermon of 
which I could hardly understand one word. He was 
liberal in theology, and proscribed by orthodoxy ac- 
cordingly. But he managed to persuade himself that 
the Anglican Articles and Creeds were in reality sym- 
bols of freedom. 

The Honorary Secretary of the Jamaica Committee 
was Mr. Chesson,^ now no doubt forgotten, yet not un- 
worthy of remembrance. His life had been devoted to 
the protection of the aborigines, clients who could not 
pay their advocates either in money or in fame, and of 

[1 Frederick Denison Maurice. 1805-1872. Founded, with 
Sterling, the Apostles' Club at Cambridge ; inaugurated, and 
Principal of, Working Men's CoUege, London. Professor of Moral 
Philosophy at Cambridge, 1866; Incumbent of St. Edwards, 
Cambridge, 1870-1872.] 

P Frederick William Chesson was "for many years the inde- 
fatigable Secretary to the Aborigines Protection Society." He 
died on April the 30th, 1888, aged 54.J 



JAMAICA 363 

whom the vast majority probably never heard of his 
existence. Instead of being rewarded or honoured, he 
had to undergo much obloquy and ridicule. Here he 
certainly received no crown ; if the world is under moral 
government, he may have received a crown elsewhere. 
The Corn Law question, the American question, and 
the Jamaica question threw me a good deal among the 
Liberal manufacturers of the North, and enlarged my 
political experience. In Bradford, especially, as the 
guest of the two Kells, I learned much that no books 
could have taught me. But moderate Liberalism with 
perhaps an occasional turn or jerk one way or the other 
remained my creed. I was in no danger of becoming a 
demagogue, for I never could speak. In that I had 
neither genius nor tongue. Will oratory ever lose its 
power? Shall we ever get back in this respect to the 
days of Burley and the Council-board ? Popular ora- 
tory almost inevitably involves exaggeration, which 
must surely affect the soundness of the mind. 

■ I saw also a good deal of the mechanic on his political 
side. He is very sharp-witted, but very open to novel 
opinions, especially of course to such as exalt his class. 
It has been said of him that he is a Socialist at home and 
a Jingo abroad. A Jingo abroad unhappily he is apt to 
be. He was for the Crimean War, burning Bright in 
effigy for opposing it. He was for the Lorcha War, un- 
seating Bright and Cobden for voting against it. He 
was for the infamous Boer War, than which there never 
was a more flagrant breach of humanity or a fouler 



364 REMINISCENCES 

stain on the character of any nation. Extreme excita- 
bility is his danger, and the danger of the State in which 
he has so large a vote. 

Among my dear friends and instructive companions 
in those regions were Mr. and Mrs. Winkworth of Bol- 
ton. Mrs. Winkworth was the daughter of Mr. Tho- 
masson/ a great manufacturer and I should think about 
the last of those who lived close to his works and among 
his men. Now, the master, if he is a man and not a 
company, lives in a suburban villa, on which the work- 
ing-man, going out for his Sunday walk, looks perhaps 
with a sinister eye, thinking, as his Socialist prophet 
tells him, it is all the product of his labour. This com- 
plete separation, local and social, is a bad element in the 
case. 

The great problem, however, is that of giving em- 
ployer and employed if possible a common interest in 
the gains. He who brings this about would be one of 
the greatest benefactors of his kind. 

[1 Thomas Thomasson, chief promoter of the anti-corn law agi- 
tation. 1808-1876.] 




GoLDWix Smith at about Forty-five Years of Age. 

Photograph by C. H. Howes, of Ithaca, N. Y. 



CHAPTER XXI 

CORNELL 

1868-1871 

Resignation of Oxford Professorship — Invitation to Cornell — Ezra 
Cornell — The University — Cornell's Ideas — Arrival at Ithaca 

— Fellow-Lecturers — Life at Ithaca — The Oneida Conununity 

— Friends at Cornell. 

In 1866 I had to resign my Oxford Professorship and 
take up my abode in my father's house at Mortimer. 
In 1868,^ after a long and most painful illness, my father 
came to a tragical end, in consequence of a malady 
which had its source in an injury received in a railway 
accident. I was greatly broken by this, and was some 
time in recovering mental health and tone. Having 
then no very definite object in life, and having an inde- 
pendent income, I thought of returning to America and 
further studying American history and institutions. 

[1 So the MS. , but the date was certainly 1867. — See The Gentleman's 
Magazine for November, 1867, New Series, Volume IV, page 689: 
"At Mortimer House, Reading, aged 72, Richard Pritehard Smith, 
esq., M.D. . . ." See also " A History of the Reading Pathological 
Society." By J. B. Hxirry. London : Bale, Sons, and Danielsson. 
1909. Page 55. Besides, in a letter in Mr. Goldwin Smith's own 
hand (since received), dated " Mortimer House, Reading, Oct. 13, 
1867," and addressed to " Sir Chas. Russell, Bart., M.P., Swallow- 
field, Reading," occurs the sentence, " My father was buried on 
Friday." (The letter was kindly lent me by Lady Russell, of 
Swallowfield, widow of Sir George Russell, Baronet, brother of its 
recipient.)] 

365 



366 REMINISCENCES 

Just then I had the good luck to come across Andrew 
White/ who was looking out for Professors for the new 
Cornell Univeraty, of which he had accepted the Presi- 
dency. Ezra Cornell,' the founder of the UniTersity, 
had been a labourer and had laid telegraph poles with 
his own hands. Having by a fortunate investment be- 
come a millionaire, he at once asked what he could do 
¥rith his wealth for the pubhc good. The Federal Gov- 
ernment was giving each State an allotment of landscrip 
to be employed in founding a place of education with 
special reference to the improvement of agriculture, and 
at the same time of military training. Cornell, advised 
by Andrew White, offered, if the grant for the State of 
Xew York were put into his hands, to naeet it with half 
a million of his own. Other States sold their scrip; 
Cornell located that of Xew York in pine lands, which 
afterwards became very valuable and formed the chirf 
endowment of the University. TMs investment was 
the great service which in the pecuniary way he ren- 
dered to the enterprise. 

Equal to Ezra Cornell in merit and in his claim on the 
gratitude of Comellians is Andrew White, a wealthy 
citizen of Syracuse, a man of the highest attainments 

f- A- 1- - I - ""_- ^ i- r-esMtent of Cwnell Unhrefaitj ; 

■ ; " - : . PeftauLuig ; xfbavatds 
^- z-::. 11- 1 1^ Leid Tazious odter bie^ 

li:i 1 - 111 ir Veir York State, 

in 1 SOT, H 1 ?- -1 leStateAgrieol- 

--.'. - . 7- ~ :: -.L-. --.-. ."_::_ra! Course. He 



CORNELL 367 

and culture, who devoted to the foundation not only 
much of his wealth, but labour, which was of higher 
value and bestowed at a greater sacrifice. Anierican 
wealth has a bad side. It has also a good and noble side, 
which showed itself here, .\ndrew White has since been 
transferred to another sphere, and has shone as a 
diplomatist at St. Petersburg and Berlin. He has also 
shone as a writer.^ 

Cornell's special object was to put within the reach of 
poor youths the University training which in his own 
case poverty had denied. He thought that a young 
man might maintain himself by the labour of his hands 
while he was undergoing a University education. This 
part of his scheme, after fair trial, failed and was aban- 
doned. Mental and intellectual labour draw on the 
same fund of nervous energy, which in ordinary cases 
cannot supply both. Ezra Cornell himself was a man of 
extraordinary vigour and power of work. In the early 
days of the University notices were put up for students 
of employment in tending masons. But this soon came 
to an end. I am afraid I rather offended the good man 
by cautioning young English mechanics against a too 
hasty acceptance of a general invitation which he had 
sent them. I thought I knew better than he could what 
effect his invitation would have upon the imagination of 

['Among Mr. White's works are, "The Warfare of Science," 
1876; "History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Chris- 
tendom," 1897; "Autobiography," 1905; "The Warfare of Hu- 
manity with Unreason," 1906; "Seven Great Statesmen," 1910; 
also Essays, Addresses, and Speeches.] 



368 REMINISCENCES 

my young fellow-countrymen, who would fancy that in 
being admitted to a University they were going to be 
raised at once socially to the level of Oxford and Cam- 
bridge. The rush might have been overwhelming. 

Cornell, however, retained so much of its original 
character as to become a school of practical science more 
than of literary culture ; though the student of practical 
science probably takes away that which raises him in- 
tellectually above the mechanic, and enables him if he 
rises in life, as so many of them do, to fill his place well. 

The goodly Chapter Houses of some of the Greek 
Letter Societies and the general habits of a large class of 
the students are proofs that Cornell is not limited to the 
poorer class. Still, I imagine that there is nothing like 
the luxury of the sons of millionaires at Harvard and 
Yale. The extravagant and costly passion for athletics, 
which had its source in the Universities of the English 
gentry, has invaded in full force the American Univer- 
sities, and Cornell among the number. University 
authorities ought to have the courage and integrity to 
control it. University education is already challenged 
by commercial men as interfering with a youth's start 
in business life. To this challenge, if the student is to 
spend his time and his father's money in training his 
muscles, there will be no reply. After all, no excellence 
that he can gain in that way will put him on a level with 
many a negro porter. I have, in fact, seen a negro 
porter who was physically a finer man than any Col- 
lege athlete. The model of perfect human form in the 



CORNELL 369 

London Museum of the College of Surgeons is or was a 
negro, who we may be sure was as nature had made him. 
A lower level still is reached when the student becomes 
a professional performer and gate-money is the object 
of the game. A University which permits this suffers 
absolute degradation. 

' My intercourse with American students was very in- 
teresting and pleasant. They are, of course, more in- 
dependent than the English students, and would hardly 
submit to the same discipline, though it did not seem to 
me that the Faculty feared to use its authority at need. 
The political tendencies of the Americans show them- 
selves in the contests for the election of the officers of 
the Classes and the Editors of the College Journal, as 
well as in a pervading addiction to rhetoric. Their 
weakest point is their strange and worse than strange 
addiction to hazing, and to the bullying of freshmen, 
which was sometimes carried to a disgraceful extent. 
It will be curious to see how the large body of American 
students to be imported into Oxford under the Rhodes- 
ian bequest will adapt themselves to the spirit and the 
habits of the place. I cannot say that I saw with pleas- 
ure my old University made a pedestal for the statue of 
such a man as Rhodes. Nor can I think that, unless 
the object is some special branch of knowledge, it can be 
a good thing for a youth to be brought up in a social ele- 
ment different from that in which his life is to be passed. 
The Greek Letter Societies seemed to me in some 
measure to fill the place filled in English Universities 

2b 



370 REMINISCENCES 

by the College, as social bonds in a University too large 
for anything like general association. Probably they 
vary in character, some being more expensive and ex- 
clusive than others, but I cannot think that they are 
otherwise than wholesome in the main. The records 
which they keep of the lives of their members may help 
in sustaining fidelity to the path of honour. I was 
myself a member of the Psi Upsilon, and among my 
brethren were Professor Willard Fiske ^ and Andrew 
^Vhite. 

Ezra Cornell could know nothing about Universities. 
His ideas were derived from the establishment of facto- 
ries and sawmills. Without the guidance of Andrew 
White he might have failed. As it was, he imperilled 
the success of his enterprise by placing his University at 
Ithaca, then a village with no advantage for the purpose. 
Ithaca had been his home in his early days ; he was at- 
tached to it, and perhaps was not insensible to the pleas- 
ure of seeing his University rise on the hill above the 
spot on which his lowly abode had once stood. ''There 
is no enjo\TQent," says an Italian writer, "keener than 
that of being great where once you were little." That 
in attracting Professors intellectual exile w^ould be a 
drawback, Ezra could not understand. He had been 
conjured by White to place the University at S}Tacuse. 
But to S}Tacuse he had a special antipathy. He had 



p Daniel Willard Fiske, Librarian and Professor of North-Euro- 
pean Languages in Cornell University from 1868 to 1883. Bom 
at Ellisburgh, N.Y., in 1831 ; died at Frankfurt, Germany, in 1904.] 



CORNELL 371 

once stood on the bridge there for a whole day to be 
hired. At evening he was hired, but by a man who 
cheated him of his wages. He had an extremely strong 
will, and hardly anybody, but White, could have in- 
fluenced him on any subject. Here even ^Vhite failed. 
However, thanks to a most happy choice of President and 
staff, all had ended well and the shade of Ezra Cornell 
may rejoice. The University is now^ a large society 
in itself, Ithaca has grown into a little city, and is a 
healthier place than a great city for young men taken 
from their homes. 

It was on a dark November morning amidst pouring 
rain, that, having come by the night train from New 
York, I descended upon Ithaca. I was met at the Clin- 
ton House by Andrew White. After breakfast, Ezra 
Cornell took me out in his buggy on the hill, the site of 
the University that was to be. Nothing could be less 
cheering or promising than was then the aspect of things 
upon that hill. The University was represented by a 
single block of building, much the reverse of beautiful, 
and looking particularly grim on that dresiry morning. 
But I knew that there was sun behind the cloud. That 
sun has since shone out with full lustre. On that hill 
now cluster, on and round the fair Campus, the various 
academical buildings, and the numerous professorial 
residences of the great Cornell University. So rapid is 
the growth of American institutions. The site, a pla- 
teau looking over Lake Ca\Tiga, is one of the finest I 
[» This was -written in 1899.] 



372 REMINISCENCES 

ever saw. Unluckily among Ezra CornelPs gifts was not 
architectural taste ; or perhaps in arranging the group 
of buildings more advantage might have been taken of 
the excellence of the site. 

The opening of the University had taken place a few 
days before my arrival. I have always been sorry that 
by those few days I missed being a pioneer. In my 
chequered passage through life there is no happier in- 
cident than my connection with Cornell. 

I was one of a set of non-resident Lecturers or Pro- 
fessors, which included Agassiz/ Lowell,^ George Curtis/ 
and Bayard Taylor.^ Agassiz was lecturing when I 
arrived ; we boarded together in the Clinton House, and 
for some weeks I enjoyed his society. Eminent as a 
man of science, in character and habits he was simple as 
a child. He never used a bank, but, as he told me, car- 
ried his money in his pocket, and when it was spent 
went lecturing to get more. I was amused by his at- 
tempt in one of his lectures, in deference to what he no 
doubt deemed a religious audience, to reconcile with 

[1 Jean Louis Rodolplie Agassiz, a Swiss, born in 1807, went to 
America in 1846 ; of wide scientific reputation in his day. Died 
in 1873.] 

p James Russell Lowell, an eminent poet, essayist, scholar, and 
diplomatist; born at Cambridge, Mass., in 1819; for twenty 
years Professor of Modern Languages and Literature at Harvard. 
Died in 1891.] 

P George William Curtis, a noted journalist, orator, publicist, 
and author. Born at Providence, R.I., in 1824 ; died in 1892.] 

[* Bayard Taylor, a poet, a traveller, a writer ; author of a long 
list of books. Born in 1825 ; Professor of German Literature at 
CorneU ; died in 1878.] 



CORNELL 373 

geological fact the account in Genesis of a universal 
flood. ''If there is an overflow of the Mississippi/' said 
he, ' ' what do we hear ? We hear that the whole country 
is under water." He had refused to receive the Dar- 
winian gospel of evolution. In this he was unhappy; 
though perhaps the account between him and Darwin 
may not yet be quite settled. We are living too much 
under the immediate influence of Darwin's mighty 
discovery to think of its possible limits and qualifi- 
cations. 

Another of the set of Non-resident Lecturers was Wil- 
liam Curtis, an admirable lecturer and speaker as well as 
writer on public subjects and one of the best of American 
citizens. On the platform and as a journalist, he was 
always a staunch defender of the right and a terror to 
the evil-doer. Largely to his efforts was due the reform 
of the Civil Service. Unfortunately he lived in an elec- 
toral district where the opposite party had the majority 
and thus by the fatuous localism which the Americans 
have imposed upon themselves he was debarred from 
doing his best for the country. Democracy, we must 
sorrowfully confess, is not yet large-minded. 
' Lowell was also one of the ten. His anti-British 
prejudice was at that time still rather strong. I found 
him more sociable when I afterwards met him as Ameri- 
can Ambassador in England. He was not only cured of 
his anti-British prejudice, but largely Anglicized, as 
American Ambassadors to England are apt to be. It is 
hardly wise to make them afterwards American Secre- 



374 REMINISCENCES 

taries of State. Mr. Adams ^ of course escaped the 
influence, his great natural strength of character being 
aided by the circumstances of a mission which he dis- 
charged with incomparable skill. 

Accommodation at Ithaca at first was scanty. The 
mass of us, Professors and students, were quartered in 
Cascadilla, a huge building which had been intended for 
a water-cure, but was so ill-ventilated that as many 
patients probably would have been killed by the air as 
would have been cured by the water. I had rooms on 
the ground floor at the South- West Angle, from which I 
could step out upon the platform to see the sunsets, and, 
now and then, an eagle hovering over Lake Cayuga. 
We had some material discomforts to endure. But our 
life was social and merry. The people in the village, 
city, as Ithaca is now, were kind. I look back upon 
those days with pleasure. No years of my life have 
been better spent. My only regret, at least, is that 
having not then fully recovered strength and tone, I 
was below my proper mark as a teacher. None of us 
had anything to endure like the load of anxiety and 
trouble which was nobly borne in those early days by 
Andrew White. There was serious financial difficulty 
for a time, the fund having been invested in the pine 
lands, which it would have been ruinous at that time to 
sell. 

The country round the head of the two Lakes, Cayuga 

p Charles Francis Adams, appointed by Lincoln Minister to 
Great Britain, where he represented the United States during the 
Civil War.] 



CORNELL 375 

and Seneca, is very beautiful. I indulged in excur- 
sions on foot. This British habit the people could not 
understand. A farmer, if he overtook me on the road 
in his buggy, would kindly offer me a ride, thinking that 
it was only for want of a horse that anybody could be 
going on foot. A farmer with whom I had fallen into 
conversation said something that led me to think he took 
me for an American. I told him I was an Englishman. 
''Yes," he said, with a strong nasal twang, "I knew you 
to be an Englishman by your brogue." 

A summer vacation of the University which I spent 
in Cascadilla was not an unpleasant time, for I had every 
evening the society of the kindest of friends. Professor 
and Mrs. Sprague.^ The Professor, who fought for the 
Union in the war, was an American indeed, true to the 
principles of righteousness on which the Republic was 
founded. 

From Ithaca I visited the Oneida Community, and 
through the courtesy of Mr. Noyes,^ its founder and 
dictator, spent two interesting days there. A glance 
was enough to show that the social problem had not 
been solved for the world at large. The Conununity 
had grown rich ; was the owner of three factories, which 
were run on the ordinary footing with hired labour ; and 

p Homer Baxter Sprague, at one time Professor of Rhetoric and 
English Literature at Cornell ; a well-known Lecturer. Born at 
Sutton, Mass., in 1829. He married Antoinette E. Pardee, of New 
Haven, Conn.] 

p John Humphrey Noyes, born in Brattleboro, Vt., in 1811 ; 
a theologian, preacher, and writer.] 



376 REMINISCENCES 

was sitting at its ease with a very comfortable residence 
with every convenience and luxury that opulence could 
afford. For those who were learning the piano there 
was a little Kiosk in the grounds that their practising 
might not annoy. Celibacy had been the rule; but 
when the community grew wealthy, Noyes introduced, 
not marriage, but temporary unions of couples, paired 
by him on biological principles ; an institution that ex- 
cited the marked displeasure of a moral neighbourhood. 
There was a set of nurseries in which the offspring of 
these unions were reared as children of the Community. 
With the acquisition of wealth there had been an end of 
proselytism ; and the Community was, in fact, a Utopian 
club with the prospect, supposing the last survivor was 
to inherit the estate, of becoming a tontine. Celibacy, 
it seemed to me, had been the secret of success, if success 
other than material this could be called. It enabled 
the Community to save, and it removed the separatist 
influence of the family, which was the rock upon which 
the Socialist enterprise of Owen ^ and other Utopias had 
split. The same thing accounts for the temporary 
prosperity of the Shakers. Another necessity seems to 
be a religious dictatorship such as was that of Dr. 
Noyes. You are lucky if your dictator is not an im- 
postor. 

I attended a great Camp Meeting. It seemed to me 
quite as much a social gathering as a religious commun- 
ion. Preaching of a vehement kind was going on all the 
[1 Robert Owen. 1771-1858.] 



CORNELL 377 

time, and people were coining up to the preacher's stand 
and declaring themselves converted. But there were 
ice-cream establishments, and there was a good deal, 
evidently, of social enjoyment at the same time. The 
effect of ''Rock of Ages," however, sung by the multi- 
tude among the pines and under the stars, was very fine. 
Most Englishmen who visit the United States see 
only the cities, and all that is worst in American society 
and institutions meets the eye. At Ithaca I associated 
with the inhabitants of a country town, and the infer- 
ence to which my experience led me was entirely hopeful 
and reassuring. I have ever since felt, when things 
looked worst, that there was a reserve of sound and in- 
telligent patriotism, though it might be somewhat slow 
in coming to the front. Of respect for law the little 
community was a model. For police a single constable 
sufficed. When people went away from home, they 
merely locked the doors of their houses. If in those 
days there were occasionally lynchings in Northern or 
Western States, they were, paradoxical as it may seem, 
proofs rather of respect for law than of lawlessness. 
There was usually no need of a rural police, and when 
the district was raided by train-robbers or horse-stealers, 
probably a gang of foreigners from New York, the 
people were compelled to take up arms in their own 
defence. The fear now is that the American blood may 
be fatally diluted and the American character, with its 
love of law and spontaneous attachment to order, may 
be impaired by a vast and miscellaneous immigration. 



378 REMINISCENCES 

The public schools may do much in the way of assimila- 
tion. They cannot do all. They cannot at once assimi- 
late character, political or moral. 

It has been always a great pleasure to me to revisit 
Cornell, and meet again my old friends in the Profes- 
sorial Staff, such as Professors Wilder^ and Corson.^ 
Professor Wilder has made me promise to bequeath my 
brain to his physiological collection. Whatever he de- 
sires I do with pleasure.^ This will be my only contri- 
bution to science. When I am cremated, as I hope to 
be, I shall be obliged to the wind if it will waft a grain 
or two of the ashes to the Campus of Cornell. 



[1 Burt Green Wilder, B.S., M.D., Professor of Neixrology and 
Vertebrate Zoology, Emeritus.] 

[2 Hiram Corson, A.M., LL.D., Litt.D., Professor of English 
Literature, Emeritus.] 

pBut in the New York Tribune of October the 2d, 1910, 
Professor Wilder writes as follows: — 

"Sir, — The second instalment of the 'Reminiscences of Gold- 
win Smith ' in the October number of McClure's Magazine contains 
the following sentence : ' Professor Wilder has made me promise 
to bequeath my brain to his physiological collection. Whatever 
he desires I do with pleasure.' 

" The opening words must have been written by my dear friend 
in forgetfulness of the following circumstances : During the even- 
ing of April 20, 1891, in my rooms in Cascadilla Place, Ithaca, 
N.Y., in the presence of the late Henry W. Sage, and Douglas 
Boardman, both trustees of Cornell University, after I had stated 
the desirability of studying the brains of orderly and educated per- 
sons, Goldwin Smith said : ' Wilder, I would as soon you had my 
brain as my old hat, and I wish I had ten of them for you.' 

" The substance of this declaration was recorded by me on the 
26th, and it is probable that a copy was sent to him, but neither 
then nor subsequently did I depart from my rule never to make a 
direct request for a bequest of brain. That he viewed the matter 
seriously appears from the fact that, eight months later, on January 



CORNELL 379 

Since my parting from Cornell my name has been 
given to a new Hall. A generation hence perhaps 
will ask what the owner of that name was and what 
he had done to merit the honour. The professor who 
is showing him over the Hall will have some difficulty 
in finding the answer. Canada, or rather be it said 
Ontario, cooped up as it is and severed from the great 
literary and publishing centres, is not a field in which 
literary distinction is to be earned. But if hearty 
attachment to the University and sincere gratitude 
for the relief that its service gave him in a dark 
hour, the name of Goldwin Smith is not ill placed 
there. 

1, 1892, he sent me a holograpli note accompanying a holograph 
copy of a letter to his executors, directing them to deliver his 
brain to me promptly after his death ; that spontaneous references 
to the subject occur in his letters of May 3, 1896 ; November 6 and 
17, 1902, and September 26, 1906 ; and that on November 21, 1902, 
he filled out the regular ' Form of Bequest of Brain,' witnessed by 
T. Arnold Haultain, then his private secretary, now, I understand, 
his literary executor [*]... 

"Burt G. Wilder. 
"Siasconset, Mass., Sept. 29, 1910."] 

*Yes, I possess a duplicate copy of this form, signed and witnessed as the writer 
avers; but as no instructions were delivered to me, I could not act. — Ed. 



CHAPTER XXII 

VISITS TO EUROPE^ 

Reading — Magdalen — Oxford — Spiritualism — Ignorance of Can- 
ada — Knaresborough — Curious Crimes — Italy — Florence — 
Venice — Ravenna — Second Visit to Italy — Sicily — The 
Mafia — Pizzo — Italian Cruelty — Amalfi — The Papacy — 
Capua — Rome — Florence again. 

From time to time I re-visited England. Re-visiting 
the scenes of one's youth in age is a rather melancholy 
pleasure. You find yourself unknown and knowing 
nobody where once you knew everybody and everybody 
knew you. Reading, from the quiet old place of my 
childhood, had grown into a bustling city, while the 
Reading and Basingstoke Railway had made Mortimer, 
once so rural and secluded, almost a suburb of Reading. 
I was there the guest of my old friend Sir John Mow- 
bray,^ a political veteran stored with reminiscences of 
the House of Commons. At Oxford a few of my con- 
temporaries still lingered, while some of my old pupils 
remained as Heads of Colleges or Professors. But the 
character of the place, by the work of two reforming 
Commissions, the abolition of tests, the introduction of 

[1 These were made in 1876-1878 ; 1881-1882 ; 1893-1894 ; and 
1899-1900 — this last was to Italy.] 

[^ The Right Honourable Sir John Robert Mowbray, Baronet, 
P.O., J.P., D.L., M.P. for the University of Oxford ; also for the 
city of Durham, etc. Born 1815 ; died 1899.] 

380 



VISITS TO EUROPE 381 

science, and the general progress of the times, was 
changed. At Magdalen, instead of a little party of 
Demys which in my time encircled the fire in the junior 
Common Room after Hall, there was a full complement 
of undergraduates. New buildings had been added. 
There was a new President's Lodge, and in it, in place of 
the centenarian and faineant Routh, lived and ruled 
the very active and highly efficient President, my friend 
Warren/ This was well. The wealth and beauty of 
Magdalen, instead of being largely wasted, were being 
put to their right use. Yet I could not refrain from 
mentally wafting a sigh to the memory of the unre- 
formed Magdalen, and feeling a slight compunction at 
having taken an active part in letting the stir of a 
progressive age into that little nook of unprogressive 
felicity. 

The University had largely increased in numbers. 
The statute regulating the admission of non-collegiate 
students, drawn long ago by my hand, had taken full 
effect. Partly as one of its consequences, there had 
grown up in the north a new town, on which I could not 
help looking with some jealousy, as an irruption of the 
common into the uncommon with a probable disturb- 
ance of the circle of academic society which used to be 
so pleasant. The abolition of tests had also done its 
work. There had grown up two Non-conformist Col- 
leges, while Non-conformists were ever3rwhere freely 
admitted. But what I had predicted when the battle 
p T. Herbert Warren, Vice-Chancellor, 1906 to 1910.] 



382 REMLNISCENCES 

for the abolition of tests was being fought appeared to 
have come to pass. The Non-conformists had not, as 
the defenders of tests feared, swallowed up old Oxford; 
old Oxford had rather swallowed the Non-conformists. 
The spirit of the place, aided by its sesthetic and his- 
toric influences, had prevailed. On the other hand, 
science and intellectual freedom had produced their 
effect on the Anglicans themselves. The removal of the 
clerical restrictions had largely transferred teaching 
and influence from clerical to lay hands. Not that the 
medievalizing movement of Pusey and Newman had 
by any means expired in its native and most congenial 
seat. One could not enter a church without seeing that 
the movement still prevailed. It had, however, as- 
sumed a new guise and one indicative of waning force. 
It had become literally Ritualist, sustained largely by 
aesthetic influences, whereas under Pusey and Newman 
it had been theological and was finding its adherents in 
a weaker class of minds. Newman was not Ritualistic. 
I never saw his Oratory, but it was said that ever)i;hing 
was very plain. 

In one of our visits to England we found ourselves in 
a boarding-house with a pair of highly cultivated and 
pleasant people who were believers in Spiritualism ; had 
in fact adopted it as their religion and went to seance as 
to Church. I was a sceptic, remembering as I did the 
beginning of the movement in table-turning and the 
turning of hats. Our friends were anxious for my con- 
version. They proposed to me a seance with the first 



VISITS TO EUROPE 383 

Medium of the day, who was then in London. My 
curiosity led me gladly to assent to the proposal. Going 
to the Medium's abode, I paid a guinea, as I should to 
a physician, and was shown into a room where I waited 
for some time. Presently the Medium appeared, an 
American with a strong New England accent. He 
entered into a desultory conversation with me, probably 
with fishing intent. Then he announced that the spirit 
Winona had entered into him and that thenceforth it 
would be she that spoke to me. In compliment to her 
Medium, however, she spoke with a strong Yankee 
accent. She launched into a maundering discourse, to 
which, growing impatient, I put an end by asking her 
whether I was married. That I seemed alone in the 
material world, yet not alone, was the luminous reply. 
Further maundering followed. The spirit condoled 
with me on the ill luck which had befallen my nephew. 
''What misfortune?" I asked, feigning surprise at the 
accuracy of her information. She proceeded to give 
me an account of my nephew's misfortune in missing a 
Government appointment. As I never had a nephew, 
I went away perfectly satisfied with the interview. I 
could not help suspecting that Winona had received a 
tip, and that her prompter had made a mistake. How 
otherwise could this story have come into her head? 
What fantastic tricks will not pious self-deception play ! 
Again, I was breakfasting with a friend, a shrewd and 
successful man of business, and his wife, a clever woman. 
There was a third person present whom I did not know. 



384 REMINISCENCES 

The Court of Chancery had just compelled Home/ the 
Medium, to disgorge a large sum out of which he had 
swindled an old woman by personating the spirit of her 
dead husband. I referred with pleasure to the incident. 
My friends looked displeased, and at last disclosed the 
fact that they were friends and disciples of Mr. Home, 
to whom they had been introduced by Gully,^ of the 
Water Cure, who afterwards figured rather equivocally 
in a famous criminal case. I had then to beat a partial 
retreat. I said that I was not sceptical by nature, and 
that I was prepared to accept facts foreign or even 
opposed to my own experience on trustworthy evidence. 
''Will you then believe us if we tell you that Mr. Home 
held a seance in this room last evening and that we saw 
that heavy arm-chair advance at his bidding from the 
corner in which it now stands to the centre of the 
room?" "Certainly," was my reply; ''knowing you 
as I do to be perfectly trustworthy witnesses, I will on 
your evidence accept the fact. But I have two ques- 
tions to ask. Did the chair move away from Mr. Home 
as well as towards; and was there anybody between 
him and the chair when it moved?" Both questions 

p Daniel Dunglas Home, born near Edinburgh in 1833 ; died at 
Auteuil in 1886. — He is the "Sludge" in Browning's !' Sludge the 
Medium" (published in 1864).] 

[2 James Manby Gully. He and James Wilson introduced the 
hydropathic treatment of disease at Malvern about 1842. He is 
the "Dr. GuUson" of Charles Reade's "It is Never too Late to 
Mend." — The case referred to was known as the " Bravo ease." 
A Mrs. Bravo was suspected of poisoning her husband. Disclosures 
showed Gully's intimacy with the lady. Born 1808 ; died 1883.] 



VISITS TO EUROPE 385 

had to be answered in the negative. The impostor no 
doubt pulled the chair to him with a horse-hair line. 
The light was imperfect, and the witnesses, blinded by 
their faith, and by the solemnity of the quack, allowed 
themselves to be imposed upon by a trick which they 
would at once have detected had it been played by a 
common conjurer. 

I saw another case of spiritualism in which I thought 
the illusion was evidently produced by a yearning for 
intercourse with the dead. In connection with this 
case I was brought into contact with a female Medium 
who was evidently the coarsest of impostors and whose 
juggling apparatus could deceive no cool-headed ob- 
server. But before these pages are in print Spiritual- 
ism will have passed away. 

I In those days one encountered curious proofs of 
British ignorance of Canada. On the door of Knares- 
borough Church I read a proclamation by the Privy 
Council relating to the Colorado Beetle, a visitation of 
which was expected, beginning, ''Whereas intelligence 
has been received from Ontario, Canada, that the coun- 
try round that town, etc." Within a few days after- 
wards I fell in with three Privy Councillors, and when I 
next went to Knaresborough Church the proclamation 
had disappeared. At one place our landlady, a well- 
educated woman, could hardly be brought to believe 
that my wife's maid was a Canadian, as she was not red. 
I was invited to an emigration meeting at a city remark- 
able for intelligence. The Alabama question had just 

2c 



386 REMINISCENCES 

been settled by the treaty of Washington/ I spoke, 
dwelHng on the good feeUngs of Canadians towards the 
Mother-country. I was followed by a gentleman, 
evidently well-educated and a good speaker. He said 
that he had listened with particular pleasure to what I 
had said about the feeling of Canadians towards the 
Mother-country, and that he hoped, now that the Ala- 
bama question was settled, there would be nothing to 
divide the two countries from each other. The audience 
showed no surprise. A considerable change has since 
that time been made by assiduous ''advertising" of 
Canada, and still more by the South African war. Yet 
it seems more than doubtful whether the masses in the 
two countries can ever be brought to know each other 
and to think and act together sufficiently for the pur- 
pose of Imperial Federation. 

Knaresborough is the scene of the story of Eugene 
Aram, whose character has been sentimentally trans- 
figured by Bulwer,^ but who was really a mercenary 
murderer, though he was cultivated and literary, as he 
showed in his defence. We had something like a coun- 
terpart of him at Ithaca in the person of one Ruloff, 
who in a remarkable way combined criminal propensi- 
ties with literary tastes, being a great philologist, and 
engaged in the invention of a universal language. Ru- 
loff committed a series of robberies and murders, the 
series of murders beginning with those of his wife and 

[» February the 9th, 1871.] 

[^ Bulwer Lytton's "Eugene Aram" was published in 1832.] 



VISITS TO EUROPE 387 

daughter. On that occasion he escaped justice through 
the absence of a corpus delicti, Lake Cayuga, into which 
he had thrown the bodies, being undredgable. He 
wandered into Virginia, where he committed other 
crimes, all the time working at philology and his univer- 
sal language. Returning to his old haunts, he again 
committed robbery and murder, and again fell into the 
hands of justice. The opponents of capital punishment 
petitioned against his execution on the stock plea of 
insanity, and on the somewhat inconsistent ground that 
he had invented a universal language and that by hang- 
ing him a light of science would be put out. The Gov- 
ernor of the State issued two Commissions of Inquiry, 
one to report on each plea. Both reported in the nega- 
tive, and Ruloff was hanged. His forehead, in the cast 
which was taken, bespeaks intellect, but the width of 
the head between the ears gives it the aspect of that of 
a bull. 

My early Alpine tours embraced the Southern slope of 
the Alps. Otherwise I did not see Italy till late in life, 
when I had settled in Canada. Then I unspeakably 
enjoyed it. I hardly needed a guide ; every object was 
already familiar. The greatest surprise was the ancient 
sculpture, which I found I was far from having seen in 
seeing the casts. The tact of my courier just saved me 
from entering Pompeii with a ''caravan" of German 
"tourists," whom we found drinking beer in the restau- 
rant. What you bring back from a tour depends on 
what you take to it, and probably most of the people 



388 REMINISCENCES 

of that caravan brought httle with them to Italy. Does 
the touring which is now tlie universal rage do the mass 
of tourists more good by enlarging their ideas than it 
does them harm by taking them away from their duties 
in life ? 

At the lovely Carthusian Monastery near Florence I 
was received by a monk with a figure so austere and 
venerable that I was ashamed to use him as a showman. 
He bowed at all the altars, and appeared to be a model 
of devotion. He showed me cells in which the Brethren 
were immured, with orifices through which their meals 
were passed to them. At last he pointed to a door, 
telling me that on going through it I should see a view, 
with an air which seemed to imply that views might 
have their attractions for children of this world. The 
view was lovely. But as I was looking at it, what was 
my surprise to hear behind my back the monk and my 
man chaffing each other about the quality of the liqueur 
made at different monasteries. When I turned round, 
the monk's austerity had vanished. We went to the 
pharmacia and '^liquored up." Coming away I said to 
my man, ''You seem to know that monk." ''Yes, he 
was once a brown begging friar at Rome." "But is 
that man going to be shut up in one of those cells and 
to have his meals passed to him through a hole in the 
wall?" "Oh, since the Monastery has been reduced, 
they have relaxed the rule." 

The monks and nuns from the dissolved or reduced 
monasteries, I was told, had generally been glad to get 



VISITS TO EUROPE 389 

back to domestic life ; a fact which threw some light on 
the dissolution of the monasteries in England. Lovely 
homes of monasticism, such as the Benedictine Monas- 
tery at Bologna and that of San Martino at Naples, 
remained, when I was last in Italy, on the hands of the 
Government. Will a new spirit ever take up its abode 
in them and struggle against the ascendency of material- 
ism as monasticism in its way and measure struggled 
against the ascendency of brute force in the feudal 
era? 

'vTo be for the first time in Venice when your mind 
and knowledge are mature is the realization of a dream. 
I fortunately got there before a steamer had begun to 
run upon the Grand Canal and some time before the 
fall of the Campanile; a catastrophe which is irrepa- 
rable, for the old memories will never gather round the 
new building. This will not be the tower from which 
Antonio scanned the horizon for his over-due argosies, 
or the sight of which greeted the eye of the Venetian 
mariner returning from Oriental trade or Turkish war. 
The Dogana and St. Mark's seem to be imperilled. The 
piles surely must give way in time. Venice ''rose like 
an exhalation from the deep." Into the deep like an 
exhalation she may return. Better almost tliis than 
that she should become a vulgar trading town. 

Ruskin was there sketching. Are we bound to 
share his present admiration for St. Mark's? To 
me, I confess, it seemed more interesting as symbolic 
of the half Oriental piety of a race of commercial 



390 REMINISCENCES 

adventurers than transcendently beautiful. It surely 
is too dark. 

The piombi are the grim memorials of that wonderful 
oligarchy which for so many centuries, while it deprived 
the people of political life and thought, gave them free- 
dom from the political convulsions of Florence and the 
other democratic republics, with security for the life of 
trade, literature, art, and the brothel. 

Another vision of the past was Ravenna, a city of 
ancient history preserved in its antiquity and silence by 
the silting up of the harbour, where once the Roman fleet 
rode at anchor, and by the malarious rice grounds. 
Byzantine work is that of a decadence. Mosaic is not 
art. Yet the churches have a certain magnificence, 
besides the intense interest of their antiquity. The 
portraits of Justinian and his court are apparently 
genuine, though barbaresque. Here is a Roman Em- 
peror, though one of the lowest decadence, in his own 
tomb. A Roman Empress was actually to be seen in 
hers till some profane urchins threw in a lighted match. 
''Old Ravenna's immemorial wood" of Italian pines 
was also profoundly impressive when I was there; I 
believe it has since been decaying. Ravenna, if it was 
in Dante's time anything like what it is now, must have 
been a suitable place of exile for the writer of "Purga- 
tory" and "Hell." I admire, but I never could love, , 
the poet who had painted God as the creator and keeper^> 
of a torture-house unspeakably worse than that of the 
most execrable of Italian tyrants. 



VISITS TO EUROPE 391 

Ravenna by this time no doubt swarms with tourists 
'Moing" its antiquities. Though the spell might be 
impaired by the crowd, one might be glad that the en- 
joyment was shared, were it certain that it was real, not 
a formal course of sight-seeing from which no idea or 
impression is carried away. 
' My visit to Italy was repeated in 1899 when I went in 
company with my dear wife and our friend Miss Crooks, 
now Mrs. Burns. ^ Then it took in Sicily. I saw the 
Temple of Concord at Girgenti standing on the silent 
shores, a lovely mourner over the grave of the mighty 
Agrigentum. I saw the great harbour of Syracuse 
where Athenian Imperialism had met its doom, and 
the quarries which had been its tragic prison-house. 
I saw the divine Landscape of Taormina. I saw Pa- 
lermo with its broad valley lying among the hills, a dark 
green expanse of orange and lemon groves, with its 
ravishing Chapel Royal, and still more ravishing Church 
of Monreale. On the night when I was at Palermo took 
place, amidst a scene of the greatest popular excitement, 
the arrest of Palizzolo, a local magnate and chief of the 
Mafia, for the murder of his enemy Notabartolo.^ The 
murder had been committed several years before, but 
the murderer's political influence had prevented the 

[' A daughter of the late Robert Pilkington Crooks, of Osgoode 
Hall, Toronto, and widow of Captain A. Norman Burns, of the 49th 
(late Princess Charlotte of Wales's) Regiment.] 

P In 1893 Signor Notarbartolo, a Governor of the Bank of Sicily, 
accused Palizzolo, a brother-Governor, of fraud. A week or two 
afterwards his dead body was found, covered with wounds.] 



392 REMINISCENCES 

passing by the Chamber of Deputies, of which he was a 
member, of the resolution necessary to put a Deputy 
on his trial. Thus for years murder had stalked the 
streets of Palermo, defying justice, while those streets 
were full of soldiery. At last a strong Prime Minister 
carried the resolution, stopped the post and telegraph, 
and pounced upon Palizzolo. The venue was changed 
to Milan, conviction in Sicily being hopeless. But 
when I left Italy, the court had got no further than 
committing twenty witnesses for refusing to give evi- 
dence against the Mafia. 

Matters were not much better at Naples where the 
Camorra domineered. Miss Crooks was robbed of her 
reticule in one of the principal streets at midday by a 
man who then jumped into a cab and was going off 
when he was collared by a bersaglieri. We received a 
friendly hint that we had better leave Naples. Had 
there been a trial, there might really have been some 
risk. Luckily the robber proved to be a ticket-of-leave 
man and was remanded to prison on his former sentence. 
The career of Mussolino and the sympathy felt for the 
savage, show how, when the law has been for centuries 
the enemy of the people, the people become the enemies 
of the law. Nor, when I was at Naples, had the law, or 
at least the Government, become the people's friend. 
Half the morsel of coarse bread and the cup of meagre 
wine were being taken from the lips of poverty to pay 
for the share of Italy in the Imperialist and Militarist 
craze. The squalid misery in Naples was frightful. 



VISITS TO EUROPE 393 

On my way back from Sicily, through the irregularity 
of the Italian railway service, I found myself stranded 
for the night at Pizzo in Calabria, the place where Murat, 
landing with revolutionary designs, got himself shot; 
a late sacrifice to the manes of the thousands whom the 
ruffian had massacred at Madrid. A darker or more sin- 
ister-looking place I had never beheld than that little 
Calabrian town. The filth of the inn was unspeakable. 
But the courtesy of the people whom I found at supper 
in the saloon, probably the heads of Pizzo society, 
nothing could exceed. In the morning I heard under 
my window a noise which reminded me of the chorus 
of frogs. Looking out, I saw all Pizzo gathered in the 
square and holding its early conversazione. Ragged 
and dirty in the highest degree the company were. 
But they seemed, and let us hope that they were, as 
merry as multi-millionaires or crickets. 
\ The Italians are the worst of horse masters. Nothing 
can exceed their cruelty. There is no use in remon- 
strating. There might be some danger; for they are 
not less peppery than courteous. In fact, an envoy of 
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals 
who pulled up a savage at Naples was thrashed within 
an inch of his life. I was told that the Pope, when they 
appealed to him on the subject, said that Christians 
owed no duty to brutes. This was scarcely credible of 
Leo XIII. He would have known that even if Chris- 
tians owed no duty to brutes they owed some to them- 
selves. In Sicily I saw a goat hitched up to a wall so 



394 REMINISCENCES 

that it could only touch the ground with its hind legs. 
If I had rebuked the barbarian, he would very likely 
have drawn his knife. The poor little Italian horses 
do not deserve the treatment which they get. A pair of 
them trotted with me and my courier from Salerno to 
Sorrento, eight hours, with little more than an hour of 
rest, and came in as lively as they went out. I longed 
to give the poor little fellows an extra feed, but I knew 
that I should be only giving an extra feed or drink to 
the driver. 

Amalfi is now a petty town, and could never have 
been a large city. But romantic interest attaches to 
it as the cradle of scientific navigation.^ '' Empire," 
which we are now told is political bliss, was then happily 
far away in Germany, and a chance was given for that 
free and emulous development which produced the 
Italian Republics. On the day when I halted at Amalfi 
preparations were being made for an annual miracle, an 
exudation from the bones of St. Andrew, which Amal- 
fian mariners had been so fortunate as to secure, prob- 
ably from some Byzantine relic-monger, in the Middle 
Ages. This is a counterpart of the liquefaction of the 
blood of St. Januarius. A terrible millstone these an- 
nual thaumaturgies must be round the neck of the Cath- 
olic Church, which cannot go on performing them with- 
out forfeiting the allegiance of the educated or discon- 
tinue them without forfeiting the allegiance of the people. 

P The introduction of the mariner's compass has been attributed 
to Flavio Gioia, a citizen of Amalfi, in 1307.] 



VISITS TO EUROPE 395 

Of the allegiance of the educated, it is true, there is 
not much left to be forfeited. The tone of the drawing- 
room, I was told, was almost universally sceptical. A 
few old families, mostly of Papal creation, are rather 
politically than theologically devout. Yet the position 
of the Prisoner of the Vatican, if he could only see it, is 
one of far greater influence, as well as far more respect- 
able, than was that of the Temporal lord of Rome. It 
bears a certain resemblance to the Papacy of the Middle 
Ages, though Democracy and Science do not go to 
Canossa. It is in fact a crucial proof of the elevation 
which, as well as freedom, a Church gains by separation 
from the State. 

Passing Capua, I thought I could mark the spot on 
the hillside where Hannibal must have stood with his 
staff looking down on the besieged city and thinking 
how he could relieve it. The result was his ineffectual 
march on Rome. Why had he not marched on Rome 
after Cannae? He could not have besieged the city, 
as he had no siege-train ; but he might have starved it. 
His own army could well have subsisted on the country ; 
and he would have paralyzed the confederacy of which 
Rome was the head. But his judgment was that of the 
greatest captain, probably, as well as the most striking 
figure in military history. It might be conjectured that 
after Cannae his mercenaries grew riotous and demanded 
immediate reward ; but never, not even in his passage of 
the Alps, in his terrible march through the floods, or at 
the end of his fortunes, does he seem to have lost control. 



396 REMINISCENCES 

''Rome, Rome, thou art no more!" I believe says 
the song. Classic Rome really is no more. It is over- 
laid and dwarfed by Modern Rome. Why cannot his- 
toric places such as Rome and Venice be kept historic ? 
Why must we have a London quarter on the Quirinal 
and steamboats on the Grand Canal? Wlio now can 
meditate upon the ruins of Rome ? The ruins are lost 
in the modern city. The aqueducts, the roads, and the 
tombs beside the roads alone speak of ancient Rome. 
Rome never was the capital of Italy. She was the 
capital of the world. For a capital of the world her 
position was good. For a capital of Italy it is not. 
I can sympathize with Hare's jeremiads, ^ though not 
from his ecclesiastical point of view. New Italy is the 
newest of nations. She should have had a new capital. 
A fine site for one would have been the Alban Mount. 

To Thomas Arnold the moment on which he first 
caught sight of Rome was about the most solemn in his 
life. I ought to have shared that great man's feelings, 
but I did not. If ever the Papacy was a blessing, or 
other than a curse, it must have been in the Middle Ages, 
when it balanced, if it did not much temper, feudal 
force. But of medieval Rome there is scarcely a trace. 
For the ecclesiastical Rome of later days I feel no re- 
spect. Nor do the hundred temples of its sacerdotalism 
and wafer-worship, with their somewhat meretricious 
splendour, greatly impress me. St. Peter's, with its 

[* See Augustus J. C. Hare's " Walks in Rome," passim. — London : 
George Allen ; New York : George Routledge & Sons.] 



VISITS TO EUROPE 397 

vast and luminous grandeur, must impress every 
one; but hardly in a religious way. Besides, here 
also you are confronted with false relics and other 
lies. It was ancient Rome, I presume, the centre of 
conquest and the seat of empire, that stirred Arnold's 
feelings most and filled him with almost religious ec- 
stasy when he first caught sight of the city. I do not 
love conquest ; I believe in nationality ; in the emulous 
variety of nations ; and I doubt the beneficence of any 
Empire, even of that of Rome, though of what history 
would have been without the Roman Empire we can 
hardly form an idea. 

There had been one very remarkable addition to the 
sights of Rome between my first visit and my second. 
Not very far from the Church where, in his shrine of 
lapis lazuli and gold, rests the founder of the Society of 
Jesus, now stands the statue of Giordano Bruno, with the 
inscription ''To Giordano Bruno, on the Spot where he 
Suffered Death by Fire, the Age which he Foresaw." 
The erection of that statue cut Papacy to the heart. 
Nor can ''Baptist Church," flaunting in large letters on 
a building in a Roman street, be agreeable to the Papal 
eye. 

"Roman Catholicism is dead at the root as a system of 
belief, besides being weighed down by its load of historic 
crime. To its pretensions as a system of morahty, the 
moral state of Catholic countries of Italy, its centre, 
above all, is the decisive reply. Yet it is still, to use 
Macaulay's happy phrase, an august and fascinating 



398 REMINISCENCES 

superstition, and, to simple multitudes, it is the only 
spiritual influence and the only poetry of life. 

I feel more interest in Florence, that miraculous 
city, which with a population never amounting to a 
hundred thousand and perpetually torn by faction, 
produced such wealth of literature and art, to say 
nothing of manufactures and finance. Happy Florence 
to have escaped being a political capital of Italy! 
Happy Florence in having no coal or anything to turn 
her into a manufacturing city! Art is her proper in- 
dustry. Her dower is the sense of beauty which shows 
itself in the commonest objects; in the flower-market, 
in the very arrangement of goods in the stores. Some 
very pleasant days were passed in the Villa Landor, 
where, in what was once the abode of that eccentric 
and crabbed genius,^ my Cornell friend, Professor Fiske, 
was living in elegant luxury and entertaining with 
Medicean grace. Pleasant and instructive hours were 
passed with Signor Pasquale Villari,^ the eminent Pro- 
fessor of history and member of a Senate which is 
chosen for personal distinction in the different lines. 
Should the crash come which prodigal misgovernment 
on one side and the consequent growth of Socialism on 
the other seem to threaten, the Senate might prove the 
anchor of the storm-tossed State. 

[' Walter Savage Landor, author of " Imaginary Conversations," 
etc. Born 1775 ; died 1864.] 

p Signor Pasquale Villari, honorary D.C.L. of Oxford ; honorary 
Doctor of Edinburgh and Halle ; Vice-President of the Senate of 
Italy ; author of several historical and social works. Born in 1827.] 




GoLDWiN Smith at Seventy five Years of Age. 

Photograph by Dixon, of Toronto. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



VISITS TO WASHINGTON 



Settling in Canada — Washington — Bancroft — Bayard — The 
Pensions Bill — The Capitol — American Oratory — American 
Statesmanship — Washington Society — The Party System — 
Newspaper Reporters — E. L. Godkin. 

Two years were spent happily at Cornell in lecturing 
to my class in history, watching the vigorous growth 
and happy promise of the young University, and en- 
joying the society of its good Founder, Ezra Cornell. 
Then my strong domestic tastes carried me to Canada 
where three branches of my family were settled, and 
where I should still be near Cornell. 

From time to time, when settled in Canada, I, with 
my wife, visited Washington, which was always growing 
in brilliancy, architectural and social. It is the only 
great city on this continent that is permanently and 
securely well governed. Instead of being under an 
elective Council of ward politicians, it is under three 
Commissioners appointed by the President of the 
United States. Here the problem of municipal gov- 
ernment, supposed to be insolvable, is solved if other 
cities would accept the solution. They will never get 
out of the slough of mal-administration and corruption 

399 



>.. 



400 REMINISCENCES 

in which they are all wallowing while they hug the 
elective system and government by ward politicians. 

A thing that strikes one in the new city is the 
predominance of the military element in the statuary of 
the squares. Why is it that the Americans, an industrial 
people, are such worshippers of military glory ? Why 
was the figure chosen to stand in front of the White 
House the victor, if it could be called a victory, of New 
Orleans, ramping on a war-horse when he ought to be 
crouching behind a cotton-bale?^ Why have there 
been so many military Presidents and nominees for the 
Presidency, while England, an old war-power, has had 
only one military Prime Minister, and that one chosen, 
not on military grounds, but because he was one of the 
leading statesmen of Europe ? ^ 

I was elected a member of the Cosmos Club, and there 
had pleasant and instructive talks. My old friend Mr. 
Bancroft had taken up his winter abode in the city, 
and I often dropped in to make up a rubber for him in 
the evening. Why cannot Progress let whist, the solace 
of old age, alone ? Wliy turn it into bridge whist, or 
destroy by the intrusion of mechanical science the in- 
terest of planning your own game ? My private con- 
viction is that whist, as it was played in my youth, and 
as Sarah Battle played it, with ten points and honours, 
was really the best of all. It was a happy mixture of 

P Andrew Jackson, the seventh President of the United States. 
He defeated the English under General Sir Edward Pakenham at 
New Orleans in 1815.] 

[2 The Duke of Wellington, Prime Minister 1829-1830.] 



VISITS TO WASHINGTON 401 

skill and luck, and gave room for interesting vicissitudes 
of fortune in the course of a game. 

Bancroft had preserved liis health and his powers of 
work into old age by a careful regimen. Like Bethell, 
he worked early in the morning. He took regular horse- 
exercise till very late in life. When he could no longer 
ride, he took to driving, which, as he was apt to let 
the reins drop, was rather perilous to himself and to his 
companion. When he took my wife out for a drive, 
I was glad to get her back safe. 
/ One of my great friends at Washington was Mr. 
Bayard,^ a thoroughly high-bred and honourable poli- 
tician. He was not the less admirable in my eyes for 
having at the outbreak of Secession bravely spoken 
against war ; though his voice had been drowned in the 
roar of onset and he had long suffered in popularity as 
having been unpatriotic, when in truth he had behaved 
like the best of patriots. One of his claims to my 
esteem was that he was a sound free-trader. He was 
afterwards Ambassador to England, and there dis- 
tinguished himself as an envoy of peace and friendship. 
It might be ungracious to say that with the liighest of 
motives he somewhat overdid the part. An American 
Ambassador to England should be cautious how he 
allows himself to be brought under the spell of London 
Society. He should remember that he is an ambassa- 

[1 Thomas Francis Bayard. He was Secretary of State from 
1885 to 1889 ; appointed Ambassador to Great Britain in 1893. 
Born in 1828.] 

2d 



402 REMINISCENCES 

dor, the representative of a separate and occasionally 
conflicting interest. I have touched on this point al- 
ready in the case of Lowell. 

I think it was Bayard that invited me just after the 
inauguration of the President to accompany him in a 
call at the White House. I demurred, saying that I had 
no business or right to intrude. My friend assured me 
that the President would be glad to see me. I really 
believe he was. The White House absolutely swarmed 
with office-seekers, some of whom had come not alone, 
but bringing with them a local tail to press their claims, 
and the distracted victim of their importunities may 
very likely have found relief in turning aside for a few 
minutes to talk to a visitor about Canadian weather. 
A terribly seamy side of American democracy is the 
place-hunting. We all know how Lincoln at the su- 
preme moment of national peril was distracted by the 
ravenous importunities of the place-hunters. ''Ah! 
It's not the Civil War, it's that Postmastership at Ped- 
lington," he cried in his anguish. For ever blessed is 
the memory of George William Curtis, the principal 
begetter of civil service reform! It is, however, not 
wonderful that civil service reform should have a hard 
life, as it evidently has, under the party system of Gov- 
ernment. Party must have workers, and the workers 
must be paid. British Ministers were willing enough 
to give up their petty patronage, which was always a 
great plague and nuisance to them, while they retained 
the great patronage and that which wins the support of 



VISITS TO WASHINGTON 403 

powerful men, the appointments to Peerages, Baron- 
etcies, Knighthoods, Bishoprics, Deaneries, Colonial 
Governorships, Indian Viceroyalty, and Irish Lord 
Lieutenancy, besides the social grade which hitherto at 
least it has been in their power to impart, and the much- 
coveted admission to Royal Balls. 

I was at Washington when the Pension Arrears ^ill 
was going through Congress. I was lunching with my 
old acquaintance Butler and a party of Congressmen. 
I ventured to ask them what they thought would be 
the cost. I think they said twenty-five millions of 
dollars with a prospect of a speedy decrease. Admira- 
tion filled the world when, after the war, the army, 
instead of overturning the Constitution and making its 
General a dictator, as it had turned its ploughshares 
into swords, turned back the swords into ploughshares 
and returned generally to the employments of peaceful 
life. Nobody could foresee that out of the grave of 
the military organization would arise a political organ- 
ization styling itself the Grand Army of the Republic 
and plundering the nation on a gigantic scale. Thirty- 
five years after the end of the war, the country was 
paying one hundred and forty millions in pensions, of 
the claims for which a large proportion were notorious 
frauds. Compared with this, what are the worst cases 
of monarchical wastefulness? What was the cost 
of that paragon of monarchical wastefulness, Ver- 
sailles? Nor was the expense the worst of the evil. 
The worst of the evil was the demoralization. Yet not 



404 REMINISCENCES 

a politician dared say a word, while the platforms of both 
parties paid a cowardly homage to the Grand Army 
vote and promised a liberal construction of the Pension 
Law, that is to say, increased license of public pillage. 
There are few things more shameful in the annals of any 
nation. The total cost of the war of Secession, when to 
the enormous outlay on the war itself, including bonuses 
and payments to substitutes, is added the pension, 
beggars experience and almost defies calculation. Per- 
haps, as I said before, for a Democracy inclined to 
Jingoism the cost of war may be a wholesome correc- 
tive. Still, the waste is appalling. 

Of course I frequented the galleries of the Capitol. 
In the Senate you can hear the Debate, which is some- 
times worth hearing. In the House, so bad are the 
acoustics, so incessant is the noise of talking, moving 
about, slamming of desks, and calling of pages, that 
hardly any speaker can be heard. It is a babel with a 
gavel accompaniment. Order there is none. I have 
seen a number of Members leave their places and 
group themselves, standing, round a speaker whom 
they particularly wished to hear. Mr. Reed's ^ sten- 
torian voice prevailed over the din. So did that of 
Mr. Bryan. ^ It may almost be said that a voice of 
thunder is a condition of political eminence. No 
ordinary organ will fill the House of Representatives 

[' Thomas Brackett Reed was Speaker of the House of Repre- 
sentatives from 1889 to 1891.] 

P William Jennings Bryan, Member of the House of Representa- 
tives from 1891 to 1895 ; Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 
1896 and other dates.] 



VISITS TO WASHINGTON 405 

or the Hall of a Convention. Political influence thus 
comes to be measured by power of lungs. An Ameri- 
can to whom I made this remark answered that it was 
the shrill not the loud voice that was best heard. That 
may be ; still the power of sound, whether the sound is 
that of the drum or of the fife, predominates over that 
of sense. 

The average of speaking, however, in America, both 
in Congress and elsewhere, is far higher than it is in 
England. Rhetoric and elocution are parts of ^\jnerican 
education. Nor is American oratory in general any 
longer vitiated by spread-eagle. In this, as in others, 
Americans have found out their weak point. You 
must now go very far west, or perhaps south, to meet 
with an Elijah Pogram.^ The training, however, has 
one bad result, the orator seldom gets rid of the air 
of speaking for effect. The great English orators, 
nature's elect and pupils, such as Gladstone and Bright, 
speak in the accents of nature and to the heart, though 
practice in debating societies had marred the freshness 
of Gladstone's style. I once heard Everett, whose 
platform oratory was the acme of j\merican art. His 
language was unimpeachable. But his every word 
and not only his every word, but his every gesture, was 
unmistakably prepared. He seemed to gesticulate 
not only with his hands, but with his legs. He even 
planned scenic effects beforehand. Having to deliver 
a Fourth of July oration, he introduced a veteran of 

[^ In Dickens's "Martin Chuzzlewit."] 



406 REMINISCENCES 

1812, put him in a conspicuous place, and told the old 
man to rise to him at his entrance into the Hall. The 
old man did as he had been bidden. Everett apos- 
trophized him with, "Venerable old man, sit down! 
It is not for you to rise to us, but for us to rise to you." 
The veteran said afterwards, ''Mr. Everett is a strange 
man; he told me to rise when he came into the Hall, 
and when I did rise he told me to sit down." 

I have always had a poor opinion of American states- 
manship. In the United States the grocers are states- 
men ; the statesmen are grocers. The level of political 
intelligence among the people is probably higher than 
it is in any other country. The aims of the statesmen 
are for the most part miserably low and narrow. Their 
treatment of the Canadian question, among other 
things, is a proof of this. Their attention and energies 
have been greatly absorbed by a struggle among a set 
of corrupt interests for the bedevilment of the Tariff. 
The interests being largely local, politics become pa- 
rochial as well as low. The term of the Member of the 
House of Representatives is too short for political train- 
ing, and that House is a chaos led, if at all, most incon- 
gruously by the Speaker, who acts as the head of a 
party when he ought to be perfectly impartial. The 
exclusion of the Ministers of State from the Legislature 
deprives legislation of guidance and divests the Minis- 
ters of responsibility. The Ministers are creatures 
of a day, going out of office with the President, and 
seldom afterwards remaining in public life, so that 



VISITS TO WASHINGTON 407 

there can be no continuity of policy in the Department 
of Foreign Affairs or elsewhere. The Senate being 
comparatively permanent, as well as composed of a 
rather more powerful class of men than the House, 
power gravitates to it, and it seems likely to become 
paramount, while it is itself becoming a representation 
of log-rolling monopolies. Men whose private business 
is important are giving up their places in the House of 
Representatives, feeling that their time spent there is 
wasted. The weak points of the American Constitu- 
tion are beginning to appear. Deference to the false 
diagnosis of Montesquieu entered into its construction 
and is now interfering with its working as a republican 
counterpart of the Constitution of Great Britain. 

Such faith as I have in the political future of the 
American people was formed by those two years' 
residence in a little American town. Ithaca, if a fair 
appeal could be made to its good sense, would settle 
aright questions in the treatment of which Washington, 
under the influence of sinister intents and slavery to 
party fails. 

The tendency of society at Washington, of Official 
and Congressional society particularly, to dress itself 
after European Courts and to mimic their etiquette is 
manifest and amusing. Still, when I was there. Demo- 
cracy continued to assert itself, especially in the famil- 
iarity of the people with the head of the Republic. I 
attended one of the Presidential receptions at the 
White House. It was in the evening. There was an 



408 REMINISCENCES 

immense attendance of people all in their common dress. 
From the time when I fell into the line it took three 
quarters of an hour to reach the White House. It 
took the same time to get from the entrance to the 
White House to the Reception Room, where the name 
of each visitor was called by the Marshal, and the Presi- 
dent took each in turn by the hand. Sad the plight 
of his hand at last must have been. Nothing, however, 
could be better than the behaviour of the people- 
They moved on quietly in line, showing not the slight- 
est sign of impatience. It is doubtful whether a crowd 
of the aristocratic society at London would have be- 
haved quite as well. We used to hear of scuffles and 
of torn dresses in the 'Crush Room' at St. James's. 

I was at Washington in 1885 when, in consequence 
of the Penjdeh incident,* Great Britain was on the 
brink of a war with Russia. Authentic information 
came to me concerning a new military invention which 
had been tried in presence of the Russian Ambassador 
with success and seemed to be important. I at once 
wrote to the Governor-General of Canada ^ offering, 
if it was deemed worth while to inquire, to bear any 
necessary expense. I conomunicated also with a mem- 
ber of the Government in England who certainly gave 
serious attention to the matter. I may mention this, 
as this page will meet no eye but my own while I live. 
I have not been regardless of my British Citizenship, 

[1 An attack, in March, 188.5, by the Russian General Komaroff 
on a fortified Afghan post.] P Lord Lansdowne.] 



VISITS TO WASHINGTON 409 

though, living long away from my own country in a 
country not my own, I have naturally become more 
or less a citizen of the world. In Canada I was the 
President of the Loyal and Patriotic Union formed 
at the time of Mr. William O'Brien's incursion,* to up- 
hold the integrity of the United Kingdom, while the 
Dominion Parliament and the Ontario Legislature, 
with all their loyalty, had been courting the Irish vote 
by resolutions in favour of Home Rule, as the Dominion 
Parliament has again done. When Sumner traduced 
England, I, being then in the United States, answered 
him,^ and I hope I have never failed in dealing with 

p 1880.] 

[^ Through the kindness of Mr. R. C. Edlund, of Cornell Univer- 
sity, Ithaca, I learn that : — 

"In Volume XIII of the Works of Charles Sumner, published by 
Lee and Shepard, Boston, 1880, on pages .5.3 to 9.3, there is an address 
entitled '('laims on England, — Individual and National,' with the 
sub-title 'Speech on the Johnson-Clarendon Treaty, in Executive 
Session of the Senate, April 1.3, 1809.' Although this speech was 
made in Executive Session, it appears that the Senate removed the 
injunction of secrecy that is usually placed on speeches so made 
and reports of it were extensively printed and circulated." 

To this Goldwin Smith replied in a speech at Ithaca on the 19th 
of May, 1809, on "The Relations between America and England." 
This speech was afterwards printed in pamphlet form by "0. C. 
Bragdon, Publisher, Ithaca, N.Y., The Ithacan Office." In a 
Preface to this are the following paragraphs : — 

"The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations 
seemed to speak the mind of the Senate and the nation; and had 
his speech been followed by action in the shape of a pressure of his 
demands, as the answer of Croat Britain could not be doulitful, 
the danger of a rupture of friendly relations between the two coun- 
tries would have been serious. 

"An Englishman resident in America may be an imperfect judge 
of the indications of American feeling ; but he has the advantage of 



410 REMINISCENCES 

history to plead the cause of my country where I be- 
lieved she was in the right. I could never have said 
with Decatur, "My country, right or wrong." 

A curious structure is the party system of the United 
States. There are two great organizations always on 
foot and now recognized by constitutional law, which, 
for example, provides that the two parties shall be 
equally recognized in the appointments of the Civil 
Service Commission. But the principles of each organ- 
ization are ambulatory, and a fresh platform is con- 
structed before each Presidential election, the planks 
being selected with a view to the attraction of votes. 
It is possible to trace a connection, though of a very 
tortuous kind, in the principles of the Democratic 
party, which having in the time of Jefferson been, 
though under a different name, ultra-Democratic, 
became that of the slave-owning Oligarchy of the South, 
the medium of transformation being the ultra-Demo- 
cratic theory of State-right, which sheltered slavery. 
The changes, nevertheless, are vital. Nobody would 
recognize the identity of the plutocratic Republican 
of the present day with the patriotic Republican of 
the struggle for the Union. A journal which was for- 
merly the Democratic organ of the slave-owning interest 
is now the Republican organ of the plutocracy without 
feeling the change. 

knowing something of both sides : and the danger was to be meas- 
ured, not by the feelings or intentions of the American people alone, 
but by these combined with the general temper and present mood of 
the powerful nation against which Mr. Sumner's speech was made."] 



VISITS TO WASHINGTON 411 

I was at Washington at the time of the Half-Breed 
rising in the Canadian North-West.^ There was afloat 
in the United States a behef that not only the Half- 
Breeds but the Indians in Canada had been oppressed 
and goaded to rebelHon. I was accosted by a reporter, 
a young man of gentlemanly manner who introduced 
himself as a graduate of a first-class University, and 
desired that I would allow him to interview me on the 
North- West question. I thought there would be no 
harm or danger in telling him that the case of the Half- 
Breeds was under investigation, but that to the Indians 
the conduct of the Canadian Government had cer- 
tainly been just and kind. Next morning, taking up 
his paper, I found that I was made not only to say the 
opposite of what I had said about the Half-Breeds and 
Indians, but to bring forward a fresh charge of mal- 
treatment of settlers against the Canadian Govern- 
ment, and to quote a letter in support of it; I never 
having heard either of the charge or of the letter. 
After a Presidential election it was wired from New 
York to Canada that I had declared my intention of 
calling upon the President-elect and urging the imme- 
diate annexation of Canada to the United States. I 
had not been in New York for weeks, and it is needless 
to say that I never thought of being guilty of such an 
impropriety as approaching a President of the United 
States on any subject whatever. The British Associa- 

P 1884-1885. — This was the rebellion that was led by Louis 
Riel and quelled by General Middle ton.] 



412 REMINISCENCES 

tion, when it first visited Canada, brought with it a 
number of trippers whose behaviour was not entirely 
worthy of science. Some of these men went to Phila- 
delphia, where there was an exposition going on, and 
there also got into an altercation with the natives. 
The consequence was that, taking up an American 
journal, I read that I had written a letter to a Toronto 
paper denouncing these people for their behaviour and 
branding them as bagmen. I at once sent in a correc- 
tion, saying that I had not written or thought of writ- 
ing any letter of the kind, and that when the British 
Association was in Canada I was attending a Convention 
at Chicago. After a long delay, the correction ap- 
peared. I sent a disclaimer to Tyndall, who in his reply 
said that a thing of the same kind had happened to him 
in New York. He had been made to pass a severe 
stricture on the fire service, when he had never said a 
word upon the subject. I heard of a case in which, 
complaint having been made of a totally fictitious ac- 
count of an affair of which a reporter had written in 
absolute ignorance, the editor's answer was that the 
reporter had done his best under trying circumstances. 
Let me say for my old friend Mr. Charles Dana,^ of 
the New York Sun, that whatever might be his faults, 
prone as he certainly was to extreme prejudices and a 
violent expression of them, he had the feelings of a 
gentleman with regard to the social honour of the press. 

[1 Charles Anderson Dana became editor of the New York Sun 
in 1868. Born at Hinsdale, N.H., in 1819.] 



VISITS TO WASHINGTON 413 

I had occasion once to appeal to him on this score, and 
he responded most promptly and heartily to the appeal. 
If anybody had brought Charles Dana a report of what 
had been said at a private dinner-table, I think Dana 
would have kicked him downstairs. The Press surely 
ought to have, and to enforce by common action, its 
professional rules of honour. 

It is needless for me to add to the flowers of praise 
deservedly strewn on the tomb of my friend E. L. God- 
kin.^ In days in which the question what is behind the 
press was of all questions not the least dark or the least 
formidable, we always knew that strict integrity and 
perfect independence were behind the Nation. Master 
of a most telling style, and using it fearlessly in the 
cause of what he deemed, and was very seldom mistaken 
in deeming, right, he was one of the very best antiseptic 
elements in American public life. He of course received 
from all wrong-doers an abundant tribute of hatred 
and abuse. There never was a more genuine patriot. 
Party, popular passion, and advertisers, all of these he 
could defy in the interest of the country. He has left 
few behind him who can do the same. 

[1 Edwin Lawrence Godkin was born in Ireland in 1831 ; became 
editor and proprietor of the New York Nation in 1856, and of the 
New York Evening Post in 1881.] 



CHAPTER XXIV 

VISITS TO THE NORTH-WEST 

1870, 1888, 1889 

The North-West — Winnipeg — Skye Crofters — Immigration — 
Annexation — The Canadian Pacific Railway — The Rocky 
Mountains — British Columbia. 

I PAID two visits ^ to that land of miraculous promise, 
the North-West. Very impressive was the view of 
that unbounded plain, its expanse stretching out like 
a sea purpled by the twilight and set off by an electric 
light upon some tower in the distance. Very lovely 
no doubt is the prairie in the season of flowers. But 
it must be trying to the spirits to live in a country 
without a hill or a tree, especially on a lonely farm. 
Fortunately the pioneer is not afflicted with morbid 
sensibilities. The fruitfulness of the soil is extraordi- 
nary, and apparently it is inexhaustible. I found no 
falling off in the vegetables of a garden which had been 
worked for tliirty years. But the fertility of the soil 
is balanced by the severity of the climate. In harvest 
time everybody is trembling for fear of an early frost. 

[• In 1870 he went to Winnipeg; in 1880 to the Pacific coast. 
A third journey was made in 1889, but to what point, I do not 
know.] 

414 



VISITS TO THE NORTH-WEST 415 

The intensity of the cold is no doubt mitigated by the 
dryness of the air. But it is in vain that the people 
conspire as they do to make you beheve that forty 
below zero is pleasant. The inconvenience, if not the 
suffering, must be great. You will not persuade me 
that you are in bliss when your breath freezes on your 
sheets, or when, after keeping several stoves burning in 
your house all night, your bread is frozen till twelve 
o'clock next day. Most of the settlers are young, and 
their blood is warm. 

I had been curious to see the North- West, partly 
because I thought that farm-life there would be likely 
to change its character. The prairie is specially 
adapted to machine farming. It seemed probable that 
large farms would pay, while in the long winter and the 
great solitudes there would be social cheerfulness in 
the staff. The system was tried, and at the Bell farm, 
where I was most kindly received, I saw 1400 acres 
of wheat in a single field. But the experiment failed, 
principally, I believe, owing to the cost of keeping the 
staff during the winter. 

Young Englishmen of the upper class seemed as a 
rule to fail as farmers in the North- West, though they 
did better in the ranches. It was said that their har- 
vests were remittances. Many of them had drifted 
into the Mounted Police; many of them afterwards 
drifted into the [South African] Contingent. A farmer 
in Canada must work hard, live hard, and bargain 
hard. A young English gentleman may do the first at 



416 REMINISCENCES 

a pinch; the second he does less easily; the third he 
cannot do at all. 

When I first saw Winnipeg it was in its pioneer phase, 
and at the same time in its fit of sickness after the 
"boom." In the boom of course sharks had thriven. 
One of them played a cunning trick to pass off a lot 
upon a greenhorn for many times its value. The green- 
horn at first was shy and went away. But he was 
followed by a confederate who contrived to speak, 
not to him, but in his hearing, of the immense value 
of the lot, pretending that he was himself trying to 
raise the money to buy it. The dupe slipped away 
in a hurry and closed the bargain. Speculation with- 
out capital is a walk of industry which many take in 
booms and which leads to ruin and disgi*ace. On the 
other hand, there was not the slightest symptom of 
anjrthing rowdy or lawless. 

\ I attended the opening of the new-born Legislature 
at Winnipeg. The approach of the Lieutenant-Gov- 
ernor ^ was announced by a series of explosions intended 
to represent the firing of cannon, but made, I under- 
stood, by the letting off of gunpowder with a hot poker. 
There being one or two French Members, I am not sure 
which, the Lieutenant-Governor read his speech from 
the throne in French as well as in English. I suspect the 

[1 The Hon. Adams George Archibald, of Nova Scotia. — The pro- 
clamation for the admission of the new Province of Manitoba into 
the Dominion of Canada was issued on the 23d of June, 1870 ; Mr. 
Archibald arrived at Winnepeg and assumed the functions of Lieu- 
tenant-Governor on September the 3d of the same year.] 



VISITS TO THE NORTH-WEST 417 

effect upon the French ears was hke that of the Irish 
Major's address upon Prince Napoleon, who in reply 
deplored his ignorance of ^'la belle langiLe Irelandavse." 
' As an offset to the French of the Irish Major, I may 
say that the Prince de Canino ^ at a dinner of the British 
Association, having to propose the toast of 'Science,' 
said, "I shall give you one to-ast : May de tree of science 
flourish for ever and shower down peas upon the 
nations." 

V I visited the settlement of Skye Crofters. Evidently 
it was a miserable failure. The home of these people 
had been in a climate mild though moist, and they 
had not been farmers but herdsmen, boatmen, fisher- 
men, tilling a plot of oats or potatoes with the spade. 
Probably they had never handled a plough; a binder 
they had never seen. A benevolent lady had sent 
them out, as she fondly thought, to the happy land. 
The Icelanders, by all accounts, did well. The Men- 
nonites, as farmers, better still ; but in their habits of 
living they were rather troglodytic, and since they 
have got the franchise their votes are said to come to 
market in the lump. As I write ^ settlers from the 
United States are pouring into the North-Western 
Territories, which they were sure to do when in Minne- 
sota and Dakota land became dear. The North- West 
will be American. 

[1 Louis Lueien Bonaparte, the fourth son of Lucien Bonaparte, 
Prince of Canino. A French philolo^st. After 1870 he lived 
chiefly in Englanrl. Born 1813; died 1891.] 

[2 This was 'm-itten in 1903.] 

2e 



418 REMINISCENCES 

Fear of the vast influx of an alien population is 
expressed. Fear of a vast alien population will speed- 
ily subside when it is proved that the inflowing popula- 
tion is not alien, but is identical, to say the least, 
with the Canadian, as the population of Scotland has 
proved to be with that of England. '^ Annexation," 
so much dreaded and denounced, what is it, I ask 
once more, but the reunion of two great sections of the 
English-speaking race ? 

In the grounds of the Winnipeg Penitentiary were 
to be seen some of the few survivors of the mighty 
race of buffalo, the sudden disappearance of which 
seems to be one of the most curious things in natural 
history. About fifteen years before, Mr. Cornell had 
invited me to go with him on a tour through the West, 
which I was prevented from doing; and when he 
returned he said he was sorry I had not been with him, 
for he had seen ten square miles of buffalo. Suddenly 
the race became extinct, and the true reason of its 
extinction I failed to learn. It could hardly have been 
all shot in so short a time. Railroads or a new obstacle 
of some kind must have interfered with its necessary 
migrations. Its surviving representatives at Winnipeg 
were huge antediluvian monsters. One of them came 
up to my buggy and looked at it so seriously that the 
occupant thought it best to move on. 

From Winnipeg to Calgary by the Canadian Pacific 
Railway was in those days a weary journey, the dul- 
ness of the lonely expanse being broken only by the 



VISITS TO THE NORTH-WEST 419 

little gophers, which then perked up as the train passed, 
but by this time have probably shared the general fate 
of aborigines. At long intervals was seen a settler's 
cottage, planted in conformity with the strange and 
rather cruel regulation of the Company half a mile 
off the Railroad. To the constructors of the Canadian 
Pacific Railway the praise of enterprise and energy is 
due. To Canada the benefit has been questionable. 
The Canadian Pacific Railway was not a good coloniza- 
tion road. The greater part of the emigrants it carried 
over to the Pacific State. The rest were scattered 
along a line of eight hundred miles instead of settling 
close, as would plainly have been best for them, espe- 
cially in such a country. Had the North- West been 
left to itself, it would in due time, like the Western 
States, have provided itself with railroads according 
to the measure of its needs, and probably on a better 
plan, without the enormous cost to the country, with- 
out, it may be added, the political danger which the 
influence of this enormous corporation has entailed. 
Too truly the Canadian Pacific Railway has been called 
''the Dominion Government on wheels." When we 
had a chance of obtaining reciprocity with the United 
States, the manager. Van Home, himself an American,^ 
put forth a hostile manifesto, though his line was 
beholden to the United States for its bonding privilege. 

[1 Sir William Cornelius Van Home, K.C.M.G., now Chairman 
of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Pacific Railway Com- 
pany.] 



420 REMINISCENCES 

It was not fair to judge the Rockies by a mere pas- 
sage through them on the Canadian Pacific Railway. 
But to me they were a disappointment. They are 
surely not comparable to the Alps. They present 
nothing, at least they presented to me nothing, like the 
panoramic view from Basle when the evening light is 
on the snow peaks. Besides, they lack, what Switzer- 
land and Tyrol have in their old towns and castles, 
the piquant conjunction of human interest with the 
lonely grandeurs of nature. My opinion was little 
changed by a week at Banff, and a visit to the Devil's 
Lake with its mighty bastions of rock, their feet clad 
with the monotonous pine. The boatman who rowed 
us on the lake was, I felt sure, from his look and speech 
and the manner in which he took the fare, a young Eng- 
lish gentleman broken down. 

The coast scenery of British Columbia impressed 
me more than the Rockies. It is very peculiar as well 
as very fine. The vegetation is tropical in luxuriance, 
though not in variety, and the pines and cedars are 
gigantic. I never saw anything so grand in the way 
of trees as the cathedral-like colonnade of mighty pines 
and cedars between Vancouver and New Westminster, 
unless it were the grove of spruces at Welbeck, the 
Duke of Portland's place in England. 

Victoria, with its pretty cottages amidst their bowers 
of roses, is a charming little place. It seemed free from 
the racket of commerce, resting on the little fortunes 
made from the gold-washings of former ages. The 



VISITS TO THE NORTH-WEST 421 

general air was repose. A bustling activity seemed to 
reign in the Chinese quarter alone. The view of the 
American snow-range opposite is very fine, but one 
wishes the name were not ''Olympian." Perhaps, 
however, even false classicism is better than naming 
mountains after directors of railway companies. Why 
not follow the example of Switzerland with her Wetter- 
horn and Jungfrau? 

Desperate efforts are made to keep out the Chinese. 
The pretexts are social and moral, sometimes religious. 
The real motive, of course, is fear of their competition 
in the labour market. They will probably force their 
way in the end. In the meantime there is exhibited 
the curious spectacle of wars made on China for her 
inhospitality to foreigners, while these foreigners 
themselves practise the height of inhospitality to the 
Chinese. 

\,The Canadian Pacific Railway was built, and the 
Dominion was stretched out to the Pacific, making it, 
as Mr. Dunkin said, like seven fishing-rods tied together 
by the ends, and depriving it of the last vestige of terri- 
torial and economical unity, for the purpose of incor- 
porating British Columbia, which threatened, if the 
road was not built, to stand aloof from Confederation. 
Having been incorporated at all this expense and risk, 
British Columbia might almost as well be in another 
planet. Some Canadians speculate in its mines; but 
nobody knows or cares anjd^hing about its politics or 
its general concerns. Its politics, if they were known. 



422 REMINISCENCES 

would not edify; when I asked what they were, the 
answer was, '^Government appropriations." While I 
am writing this there is a turmoil of political discord 
and intrigue going on in the Pacific Province, of which 
it may safely be said the man in the street of Toronto 
could give no account whatever/ 

The English look of Victoria was attractive, and I 
was thinking of spending some days there and hoping 
to make some acquaintances. The Society, I knew, 
was Tory, but I thought I might have left my Radical 
reputation behind. But on looking into the leading 
journal of the place I lighted on an editorial which led 
me, having seen the beauties of the place, to return by 
the evening boat to Vancouver. 

Vancouver was evidently flourishing as a port, but 
I cannot help thinking it unlikely that the grand line 
of the world's commerce and transportation will be 
through the sub-arctic region. 

British Columbia has beauty, wealth, much that has 
been attracted to it already, while much more must be 
attracted to it in time. But the grave question pre- 
sents itself: Whose will British Columbia be? Can 
American and British Dreadnoughts, even supposing 

[1 June, 1903. — There was a dismissal of a Liberal Prime Min- 
ister; an attempt to form a sort of coalition Government by the 
leader of the Opposition ; resignations of prominent politicians ; 
a dissolution; a "political contest" which "gradually grew warmer 
and warmer"; and a general election. — See "The Canadian An- 
nual Review of Public Affairs, 1903." By J. Castell Hopkins, F.S.S. 
Toronto : Annual Review Publishing Company. 1904. Pages 214, 
et seq.] 



VISITS TO THE NORTH-WEST 423 

-them to be united, hold the Pacific? What will be 
'the limit to the growth of the military power of 
Japan? Is it likely that there will be a junction of 
Japan with China? Will Germany, provoked perhaps 
by the mischief-making of British Protectionists, throw 
herself into the Japanese and Chinese scale? Will 
India rise in alliance with Japan and China? It is 

hard to discern the future ; specially hard if the greed 

i 

of conmierce persists in stimulating the passion of war. 



CHAPTER XXV 

CANADIAN POLITICS 

The Relation of Canada to the Imperial Country — Confederation 
— Quebec — Titles for Colonists — Political Parties — Sir John 
Macdonald — George Brown — Alexander Mackenzie — Edward 
Blake — John Sandfield Macdonald — Joseph Howe — Francis 
Hincks — Sir Richard Cartwright — Sir Charles Tupper — The 
Destiny of the Colonies — Annexation — " Canada First " — The 
Irish Question — Free Trade — Reciprocity — The Temperance 
Question — The Patrons of Industry — The Weekly Sun. 

Canada, with its fine-drawn relation to the Imperial 
country and the equivocal junction of two not very 
friendly races in itself, forms rather a special study for 
the Imperialist politician. At the time of the conquest 
by Chatham and Wolfe, all in England was boundless 
exultation. The object in conquering Canada was to 
set the English settlements to the south of it free from 
fear of France. Canada having been conquered, the 
English colonists, being of the Republican breed, re- 
belled against the Mother-country in pursuance of a 
quarrel, really trifling, which might have been easily 
patched up. Into the war France went on the side of 
the United States to avenge her own wrong. That 
war was the ruin of French finance, compelled the 
French Government to summon the States General, 

424 




GoLDWiN Smith at Seventy-five Years of Age. 

Photograph by Dixon, of Toronto. 



CANADIAN POLITICS 425 

and brought on the French Revolution, with all that 
followed. The train of consequences may be traced yet 
even further. In England the abolition of negro slavery, 
which had been fast coming, was put off, and the con- 
sequences of its postponement, including the war be- 
tween the free and slave States, were entailed. 

Since the settlement of the constitution under Lord 
Elgin ^ and the bonfire in the form of the burning of the 
Parliament House at Quebec,^ the only real division 
that remained was that of the British Provinces from 
the French Province, which held and still holds to its 
nationality and its Catholicism, though Lord Durham 
had regarded the effacement of its nationality as abso- 
lutely essential to the completion of his work. 

The struggle between the monarchical and the popu- 
lar principle of Government ended with the rebellion of 
1837. Beaten in the field, the party of popular govern- 
ment, aided by the same party in the Imperial country, 
triumphed in the political arena. The spasm of re- 
action under Lord Metcalfe ' was the end. Thence- 
forth the political history becomes a struggle of parties, 
splitting sometimes into sections without distinct 
principles or general objects, for power and place. This 
ended in a deadlock, out of which a way was found in the 
Confederation of all the North American colonies, with 

[^ James Bruce, eighth Earl of Elgin, Governor-General of Can- 
ada from 1847 to 1854.] 

[2 April the 26th, 1849.] 

[^ Charles Theophilus, first Baron Metcalfe, Governor-General 
of Canada from 1843 tiU 1845.] 



426 REMINISCENCES 

a federal constitution/ The supposed model was Great 
Britain. But nothing in the debate shows that the 
difference of circumstances between the two countries 
was taken into account. The British Kingdom is geo- 
grapliically united; it is divided at least only by the 
narrow Irish Channel. The union of the Canadian 
Provinces resembles, as a wit said in the debate, not 
that of a bundle of rods, gaining strength by their union, 
to which a confederationist had complacently compared 
it, but that of seven fishing-rods tied together by the 
ends. Such a geographical dispersion seems to pre- 
clude identity of interest, and with it unanimity in 
council; though about this we shall learn more when 
the effects of Western annexation are fully felt. There 
are in Canada no social materials for a House of Lords, 
nor is there anything like that independent gentry which 
has furnished the conservative element in the House 
of Commons. The leading men in Canada are com- 
mercial, and cannot leave their business offices for 
Ottawa ; or if they do, it is on business of their own. 

Confederation, when settled itself, could not beget 
issues of principle. The contest between parties again 
became a struggle of factions for power and place, with 
the rancour, intrigue, and corruption inseparable from 
such a contest, and with the sort of statesmanship that 
it forms. 

What is the destiny of Quebec ? Durham took it for 
granted that Quebec must be absorbed in British Can- 
[1 By the British North America Act of 1867 : 30 and 31 Vict. c. 3.] 



CANADIAN POLITICS 427 

ada. Instead of being absorbed, Quebec dominates by 
the help of venal support in the other Provinces. Her 
qiLasi nationality has now a powerful and chivalrous 
champion in Bourassa/ But the end must come. The 
English Provinces and the United States, to which the 
workmen of Quebec go, will have their influence. The 
people of Quebec, the peasantry especially, are pious 
and devoted to the priesthood, who have hitherto been 
their leaders and masters. But Papalism cannot reign 
for ever, and when it loses its hold, Quebec's nationality 
will fall. 

In these movements and the attendant controversies 
I supported the policy which I believed to be best for 
England as well as for Canada and the continent to 
which Canada belonged. England was uppermost in 
my thoughts. But I was thus exposed to the ire of 
Imperialists, to some of whom the character and man- 
ners of the English gentleman were an object rather of 
praise than of imitation. 

To grace their movement, the Imperial Federationists 
brought over a Duke. On a very hot day he was driv- 
ing with a party of which I was one. Opposite him sat 
a Mayor, who took his hat off. The Duke, taking this 

[• Mr. Henri Bourassa was born at Montreal, 1868 ; elected to 
the House of Commons, for the County of Labelle, 1896 ; resigned 
in 1899, to protest against the sending of Canadian troops to South 
Africa, and re-elected by acclamation in 1900 ; also in 1900 and in 
1904 ; resigned in 1907 to stand in Belleehasse County against Hon. 
A. Turgeon, for the local legislature, and defeated ; elected in 1908, 
in St. James division, against Sir Lomer Gouin, Prime Minister, and 
in St. Hyacinthe, choosing to keep the latter division.] 



428 REMINISCENCES 

for an act of social homage, bent condescendingly for- 
ward and said, ''Pray, Mr. Mayor, keep your hat on." 
"Thank your Grace, I was only coohng my head." 

I never could see that anything but false ambition and 
inflation of vanity came or could come of granting titles 
to colonists. The medieval and military title of knight- 
hood is grotesquely out of place in a modem and com- 
mercial comnaunity. Titles of office are all right ; they 
increase respect for it. Perhaps titles of mere honour 
may have a use; but let them be appropriate, and let 
them be bestowed by the community to which those on 
whom they are conferred belong. Bestowed from with- 
out they not only intoxicate, but estrange. Canada 
certainly suffers in the estrangement of her leading men 
from their looking to a fountain of honour elsewhere. 

With the politics of Canada, otherwise than as a 
looker-on and critic, I did not meddle. They were the 
politics of party when the cause of party had ceased to 
exist, as it did after the Governor-Generalship of Lord 
Elgin. In my time there was absolutely no political 
issue of any moment, nothing but a struggle for place 
carried on by intrigue and corruption, extending un- 
fortunately to legislation and appointments. To carry 
through Parliament a Bill ^ forcing Ptoman Catholic 
schools on two Pro\Tnces of the North- West, the Ro- 
man Catholic Prime Minister raised the sessional indem- 

[1 He is referring to the so-called Autonomy Bills of the Dominion 
Parliament of 1905, transforming a large portion of the North-West 
Territories of Canada into the Provinces of Alberta and Saskatche- 
wan.] 



CANADIAN POLITICS 429 

nities of both Houses of Parliament, created a number 
of pensions, and granted a salary to the leader of the 
Opposition. To serve a political piu^pose one who had 
not practised law for twenty years was made Cliief 
Justice. Of legal patronage generally party use was 
made, injurious to the independence both of Bench and 
Bar. ' ' Graft " was the slang name for corruption among 
the people, who complained truly but helplessly that 
ever}i:hing was full of it. At a farmers' picnic I drew 
a farmer aside and asked liim what was the difference in 
principle between his party and the other. He was long 
in answering, but at last he replied, '"We say the other 
fellows are corrupt." The world will not go on in tliis 
way for ever. 

Lord Durham's postulate that the French of Quebec 
must be anglicized to complete the work of political 
fusion had not been fulfilled.^ The French were French 
still, socially and politically as well as in language, and 
politicians were and still are as much as ever compelled 
to com't them. Jesuitism, which European morality 
even in Catholic Ivingdoms had spewed out a centm-y 
before, was recognized by Government and reinstated 
in its emoluments and its power of killing truth. ^ 

[' The reference, I tliink. is to pages 124. et seq., of Lord Durham's 
Report (as printed in pamphlet form at Toronto bv Robert Stanton 
in 1839). I may quote here, as explanation, one sentence : — 

"It must henceforth be the tirst and steady purpose of the British 
Government to estahHsh an English population, with English laws 
and language, in this Province, and to trust its Government to none 
but a decidedly English Legislature."] 

['- This refers to the rather celebrated Jesuits' Estates Bill, by 



430 REMINISCENCES 

The separation of the Provinces, among which there 
was Httle interchange of population, the course of mi- 
gration being to the States, was a serious poHtical evil. 
I do not know at this moment what are the politics, or 
who are the political leaders of the Provinces on the 
Atlantic or of those on the Pacific coast. The interests 
and connections of those Provinces must in part be 
nearly as much American as Canadian, the American 
tariff notwithstanding. 

The great man of Canadian politics, when first I came 
to Canada, was Sir John Macdonald,^ who ruled the 
country for many years. A very curious and notable 
character he was. The study of his life from his earliest 
years had been the manipulation of human nature for 
the purposes of party. In that craft he was unrivalled. 
A statesman in the higher sense he was not, nor an ad- 
ministrator. His principles, his economical principles 
especially, were the shifts of the hour. Only in his 
attachment to the British Crown, and in his determina- 
tion, as he said, to die a British subject, could he be said 
to be firm. He was personally very attractive, bright, 
good-humoured, versatile, capable of being all things 
to all men, of talking well on serious and even on literary 
subjects to the guests at one end of the table, and crack- 

which, in 1888, that Order obtained from the Provincial Legislature 
of Quebec the sum of $160,000, together with other sums paid to 
Catholic Colleges. — English readers will find a very succinct 
account of this affair in the Quarterly Review of April, 1890, Volume 
170, No. 340, page 534.] 

[1 Born at Kingston, Canada, 1815 ; first Prime Minister of the 
Dominion of Canada. Died in 1891.] 



CANADIAN POLITICS 431 

ing rough jokes or telling risque anecdotes to the guests 
at the other end. He was said to be like Disraeli. 
There may have been a slight likeness in face. The 
dark Highland face has something of Jewish cast. 
Other likeness there was none. Macdonald had nothing 
of Disraeli's imagination. He more resembled Palmer- 
ston as a tactician and a speaker whose object was not 
oratorical effect, but the capture of votes. He was not 
himself corrupt. It was for the game more than for the 
stakes that he cared. But he was unscrupulous in cor- 
rupting other men. He decidedly did not love Spar- 
tans. He was credited with saying that the perfection 
of a ministry would be twelve men, each of whom, if 
you liked, you could put into the penitentiary. He 
spoke in jest, no doubt ; but in the jest there was a grain 
of truth. On the eve of a general election it was pointed 
out to him that some of his men were talking Protection- 
ism, which, whatever might be its effect in such a coun- 
try as the United States, with their vast area of produc- 
tion and home trade, would not do for Canada. "No," 
was his reply, ''you need not think I am going to get 
into that hole." Scarcely two months had passed when 
into that hole he got. Rallied by his friend on his 
change, he jauntily replied, ''Yes, Protection has done 
so much for me, that I must do something for Protec- 
tion." He was a survivor of the times in which whiskey 
played an important part in politics, and he had not 
put off the habits of his jovial generation. 

Macdonald was not delicate in the choice of his in- 



432 REMINISCENCES 

struments. An incident which I am going to mention 
showed this and at the same time a certain sensitiveness 
which he retained after a hfe which it might have been 
supposed would have thoroughly steeled his nerves. 
He came to my house for the wedding of his son. On 
the evening of his arrival he was in his usual spirits. 
Next morning as we drove to the church a cloud seemed 
to have come over him. At the wedding breakfast he 
sat perfectly silent. Wlien his health was drunk, he 
disappointed the company by merely stumbling through 
two or three disjointed sentences. He was called up to 
reply to another toast, with no happier result. On 
my return home I found the Chief of Police waiting at 
my door and desiring to see Sir John Macdonald. Those 
were the days of Fenianism, and I fancied that this was 
some alarm from that quarter. It turned out, however, 
that an American ^ who had served Sir John in some 
secret and probably associated with him in some po- 
litical business, had quarrelled with him, and having 
demanded $3000 of him was trying to indict him for 
perjury and had chosen the day of the marriage for the 
service of the writ. The attempt, of course, came to 
nothing, but the apprehension of it had evidently been 
enough to upset Sir John Macdonald. 

There was a rupture between us at last, caused by his 
hasty assumption, on newspaper authority, of my con- 
nection with a letter from a Canadian to an American, 
with which, or anything in its contents, as the recov- 

[1 General Butt Hewson, I believe, was the man who indicted.] 



CANADIAN POLITICS 433 

ery of a genuine document proved, I had absolutely 
nothing to do/ 

The professions of George Brown,^ the head of the 
Grit party and Macdonald's mortal enemy, were far 
more moral than those of Macdonald. Whether he 
was a better man may be questioned, while he unques- 
tionably was far less attractive and amusing. A Lib- 
eral he might call himself; but it could be only in a 
party sense. Of liberality of character and sentiment, 
of breadth of view or toleration of difference of opinion, 
no human being was ever more devoid. Master of The 
Globe,^ which then, unhappily for the country, was the 
only powerful paper, he used it without scruple or 
mercy to crush everybody who would not bow to his 
will. For this work he had congenial instruments in his 
brother Gordon ^ and his chief writer Inglis,^ a Presby- 

[1 This was in 1901. — The incident is fuUy explained in pages 
501 to 503 of the second volume of Mr. John Mercier McMuUen's 
"The History of Canada, from its First Discovery to the Present 
Time." Third edition. Brockville : McMullen & Co. 1892.] 

[2 George Brown was born in 1818 near Edinburgh ; went to 
America in 1838 ; founded The Globe in Toronto in March, 1844 ; 
Radical M.P. for County of Kent (Ontario), 1851 ; M.P. for Lamb- 
ton County, 1854 ; for Toronto, 1857-1861 ; for South Oxford, 1863- 
1867; Prime Minister (for four days) in 1858; appointed to the 
Senate, 1873 ; died in Toronto, 1880.] 

P A daily morning newspaper published at Toronto.] 

[* Gordon Brown, a younger brother. He was born at Alloa, 
Scotland, in 1827. He was chief editor of The Globe for many years 
before the death of his brother George in 1880, and retained the post 
till 1882. In that year he was appointed Registrar of the Surrogate 
Court of the County of York, Ontario, in which office he remained 
till his death in 1896.] 

P Rev. William Inglis was a Presbyterian minister, educated in 
Edinburgh, and had been pastor of a congregation near London, 
2p 



434 REMINISCENCES 

terian minister instinct with the spirit of the West- 
minster Confession. The headship of a party and the 
editorship of a paper ought not to be in the same 
hands. When they are, the judge is confounded with 
the advocate or with something still more unfair or 
bitter. The best of Brown was his fidelity to the cause 
of the North during the American war of Secession. 
On the other hand, he traded long on the antipathy of 
the British and Protestant to the French and Catholic 
Province, a very mischievous and unpatriotic line. For 
one moment George Brown touched the goal of his am- 
bition,^ having in consequence of a mere Parliamentary 
accident been called upon to form a Government. But 
he immediately fell, raging through his organ against 
Sir Edmund Head,^ who had very properly refused him 
a dissolution. In his large and burly body dwelt a 
strong but thoroughly coarse mind. When pitted 
against Sir John Macdonald in the Confederation Gov- 
ernment ^ he soon felt his own inferiority and withdrew 
to his despotic reign in the office of The Globe. There 
is in Mr. Pope's life of Sir John Macdonald an admirable 
picture of George Brown as he appeared on the platform.* 

Ontario. In the later sixties and seventies he was an editorial writer 
on the Toronto Globe, and thus acquired a reputation for culture 
and causticity. He was afterwards assistant librarian to the On- 
tario Legislature, and occupied that position till his death in 1900.] 

[1 July the 31st, 1858.] 

[2 Sir Edmund Walker Head, Baronet, Governor-General of 
Canada from 1854 to 1861. Born 1805 ; died 1868.] 

P Of 1867, after the passing of the British North America Act.] 

['• "Memoirs of the Right Honourable Sir John Alexander 
Macdonald,i,G.C.B., First Prime Minister of the Dominion of Can- 



CANADIAN POLITICS 435 

The Leader,^ the Conservative organ, was then in its 
last stage of decrepitude. Our hopes of emancipation 
and Uterary decency were excited when The Mail 
appeared ^ announcing that it would be written by 
gentlemen and for gentlemen. But soon those hopes 
were dashed. The Mail had hardly run through a dozen 
numbers when it proved itself to be a counterpart of 
The Globe or worse. It has happily long since changed 
hands. I have lived to see a marked improvement in 
the Canadian press. The metropolitan organs are both 
in character and in literary ability superior to The 
Globe and Mail of former days; while the local press, 
which used to follow slavishly in the train of The Globe, 
has decidedly gained in strength and freedom. The 
day of perfect independence, independence not only of 
party, but of popular passion and of secret influence, 
personal or commercial, can hardly be said yet to have 
dawned. Great will be the gratitude to the proprietor 
of any journal which can hasten its coming. 

Alexander Mackenzie ^ was a thoroughly honest man, 
a faithful servant of the public and steward of the public 
interests. He deserves a statue far more than some who 

ada." By Joseph Pope. 2 vols. London : Edward Arnold. 1894. 
Volume I, pages 320, et seq.] 

[1 The Leader, published at Toronto, was founded by James 
Beaty in 1856, and ceased on October 5, 1878.] 

P March the 31st, 1872. — The Mail was another Toronto morn- 
ing daily.] 

P Born near Dunkeld, in Perthshire, in 1822 ; emigrated to Can- 
ada in 1842. He was a buUder and contractor at Sarnia, in the 
Province of Ontario, in 1848. M.P.P., 1861-1867; M.P., 1867; 
Prime Minister, 1873-1878. Died in 1892.] 



436 REMINISCENCES 

have had one. In fact, he owed his fall from power* 
partly to the integrity with which he guarded the public 
chest against raiders, while his manner perhaps was 
made somewhat repellent by the incessant worrying 
which he endured. He also overworked himself by 
excessive attention to details. This was the cast of his 
mind. He had risen from the ranks, having originally 
been a stone-mason. This made him popular with the 
Democracy, but a malicious critic might have said that 
if his strong point was having been a stone-mason, his 
weak point was being a stone-mason still. 

John Sandfield Macdonald ^ has a pleasant place in 
my memory. He was a thoroughly good fellow, and 
honest, though he had to deal with an element which 
was difficult to manage by strictly honest methods. I 
went to him one day and said, "Macdonald, I have 
come to ask you for a place." He looked very glum. 
''For two seats," I said, ''in the gallery at the opening 
of the Session." The look of painful constraint fled 
from his countenance. "The Sergeant-at-Arms will 
send you four tickets at once," he said. 

Another Canadian politician of mark with whom I 
came into contact was Joseph Howe ^ the favourite son 

[1 September the 17th, 1878, when Sir John Macdonald brought 
in his protective tariif.] 

p Born at St. Raphael, Upper Canada, in 1812 ; Prime Minister 
of Upper Canada in 1862; first Prime Minister of Ontario (1867). 
Died 1872.] 

p Born at Halifax, N. S., in 1804; a journaUst and writer of 
much repute in his younger days ; Member in the local Parlia- 
ment ; also Speaker ; Provincial Secretary ; Governor of Nova 
Scotia in 1873 ; died the same year.] 



CANADIAN POLITICS 437 

and renowned orator of Nova Scotia. He came to Eng- 
land when I was there to demand the hberation of Nova 
Scotia from Federation, into which they had been in- 
veigled by the black arts of Sir Charles Tupper. Apply- 
ing to Lord Campbell/ Howe was by him introduced to 
me. He attended a dinner at which the chiefs of the 
Liberal party were present, and made a speech somewhat 
too eloquent for a rather unimpressionable audience of 
old politicians, threatening bloodshed if his Province 
were not set free. The Liberals accordingly moved in 
Parliament. But scarcely had they done this when the 
news came that Mr. Howe was in a Confederation Gov- 
ernment.^ His apologists say that he yielded to destiny. 
But destiny, if it requires submission, hardly requires 
acceptance of place. About Howe's eloquence, it 
seems, there could be no doubt, though when I heard 
him it was rather overstrained. 

Sir Francis Hincks ^ was our greatest economist and 
financier. I always read him with respect and p^rofit. 
But his political course had been somewhat tortuous, 
and fortune more than once entrapped him into un- 
lucky situations. 

I felt great respect for the character and abilities of 

[' I suppose this is William Frederick Campbell, Lord Stratheden 
and second Lord Campbell, son of John, the first Baron Campbell, 
Lord Chancellor.] 

[2 In 1870 he was appointed Secretary of State for the Five Prov- 
inces in the Dominion of Canada.] 

P Born 1807 ; emigrated to Canada, 1831 ; M.P., 1841 ; Inspector 
General of Public Accounts ; Prime Minister, 1851-1854 ; Finance 
Minister, 1869-1873. Died in 1885.] 



438 REMINISCENCES 

Mr. Huntington.^ In his prosecution of the Pacific 
Railway scandal he served the public admirably well, 
showing great ability and courage, combined with per- 
fect self-command. Indolence, which perhaps had a 
physical cause, prevented his doing more than he 
did. 

Sir Richard Cartwright ^ was a strong man in every 
way. For many years he was the doughty advocate 
of free trade and reduced expenditure. But in his last 
years he sank into an easy chair, and allowed the Gov- 
ernment of which he was a member to lay both his great 
principles completely on the shelf. 

Sir Charles Tupper ^ was a man of extraordinary force 
and a thunderer of the platform, though the staple of 
his oratory was purely exaggeration, with a large meas- 
ure of rather vulgar invective. Unwearied, undaunted, 
and unabashed, while he served as the shield-bearer 
of Sir John Macdonald, he was very useful to his 

[' The Hon. Lucius Seth Huntington, Member of Parliament for 
the County of Shefford, in the Dominion House. It was Mr 
Huntington who, on the 2d of April, 1873, moved "That a Com- 
mittee of seven members be appointed to inquire into aU the cir- 
cumstances connected with the negotiations for the construction 
of the Pacific Railway, with the legislation of last session on the 
subject, and with the granting of the Charter to Sir Hugh Allan 
and others. . . ."] 

P The Right Hon. Sir Richard Cartwright, G.C.M.G., is Minister 
of Trade and Commerce for Canada, and has been M. P. for South 
Oxford, Ontario, since 1896. Born in 1835.] 

P The Honourable Sir Charles Tupper, first Baronet, G.C.M.G. ; 
has held numerous high political posts, including many of Cabinet 
rank ; High Commissioner for Canada, 1883-1887, and 188&-1896 ; 
Prime Minister of Canada, 1890. Born in 1821.] 



CANADIAN POLITICS 439 

chief, whose apparently lost cause he did much to 
redeem after the catastrophe of the Pacific Railway 
scandal. 

Of the few people in England who thought about co- 
lonial subjects in my day, the general opinion was that 
the destiny of the colonies was independence. I 
brought that opinion, certainly not one disparaging 
either to the colonies or to the Mother-country, with me 
to Canada. It drew me to a set of Canadian youths 
strongly imbued with it. They made me the President 
of their National Club, founded for the union and inter- 
course of all patriotic Canadians without distinction of 
political party. But on view of the situation, geo- 
graphical, racial, social, and commercial, I was led to 
the conviction that the separation of the two great 
bodies of English-speaking people on the American con- 
tinent would not last forever, and that union, free and 
equal, was in this case, as it had been in the case of 
Scotland and England, the decree of destiny. The 
word Annexation, implying a forced submission on the 
part of Canada, never passed my lips. That ultimate 
union was my opinion I avowed, and it exposed me to 
the insults and scurrility of a violent separationist, and, 
as it was called. United Empire Loyalist clique which 
tried to expel me from the St. George's Society, with- 
out success; though the behaviour of the Club on the 
occasion, seeing that I had simply held my personal 
opinions and done nothing whatever to compromise the 
Club, and that the Club was purely social and benefi- 



440 REMINISCENCES 

cent, was hardly such as that of Enghsh gentlemen 
would have been. 

That I was at the bottom of the Annexationist move- 
ment of 1892 is completely disproved by the very letter 
produced in proof of it/ The movement had its origin 
in commercial discontent, as well among the agricul- 

[1 1 append the letter : — 

"Toronto, Dec. 2, 1892. 
*' The Secretary of the Continental Association of Ontario : 

" Dear Sir. — As the Continental Association does me the honour 
to think that my name may be of use to it, I have pleasure in accept- 
ing the presidency on the terms on which it is offered, as an honor- 
ary appointment. From active participation in any political move- 
ment I have found it necessary to retire. 

" Your object, as I understand it, is to procure by constitutional 
means, and with the consent of the Mother-country, the submission 
of the question of continental union to the free suffrage of the Cana- 
dian people, and to furnish the people with the information neces- 
sary to prepare them for the vote. In this there can be nothing 
unlawful or disloyal. 

" That a change must come, the returns of the census, the condi- 
tion of our industries, especially of our farming industry, and the 
exodus of the flower of our population, too clearly show. Sentiment 
is not to be disregarded, but genuine sentiment is never at variance 
with the public good. Love of the Mother-country can be stronger 
in no heart than it is in mine ; but I have satisfied myself that the 
interest of Great Britain and that of Canada are one. 

" Let the debate be conducted in a spirit worthy of the subject. 
Respect the feelings and the traditions of those who differ from us, 
while you firmly insist on the right of the Canadian people to per- 
fect freedom of thought and speech respecting the question of its 
own destiny. 

" Yours faithfully, 

"GoLDwiN Smith." 

See " The Struggle for Imperial Unity : Recollections and Expe- 
riences." By Colonel George T. Denison, President of the British 
Empire League in Canada ; author of " Modern Cavalry," " A 
History of Cavalry," "Soldiering in Canada," etc. London: The 
Macmillan Co. 1909. Pp. 174 and 175. — Ed.] 



CANADIAN POLITICS 441 

turists of Ontario as among the commercial men of 
Quebec. I was steadily looking to the interests of 
England, which I believed would be not set back but 
furthered by the re-union of her progeny. 

The continent was one. Social fusion was rapidly 
advancing. The commercial union of the continent 
dictated by nature only awaited the repeal of unnatural 
and iniquitous laws. Drawn to American centres of 
employment, Canadians were mingling with the people 
of the United States at the rate of twenty thousand in 
a year. The churches interchanged pastors. A Cana- 
dian clergyman, just after reviling continental union and 
its supporters, accepted an American cure. Societies 
such as that of the Free Masons crossed the line. The 
Canadian Pacific Railroad, Canada's great line of com- 
munication, the administration of which, it was pro- 
claimed, was to be purely Canadian, soon had an 
American President. The Canadian currency was not 
pounds and shillings, but dollars and cents. Inter- 
marriage was frequent. Circumstance of every sort, 
besides race and language, foretold ultimate union. 
The attempts of United Empire Loyalism in Canada to 
keep alive international antipathy were fruitless. 

At the time of my settling in the country there was 
on foot among the younger men a movement called 
"Canada First," the tendency, if not the avowed object, 
of which was to make Canada an independent nation 
linked by affection to the Mother-country. This was 
my own idea, as it was that of the British statesmen 



442 REMINISCENCES 

from whom my opinions had been imbibed, and indeed 
of British statesmen generally in my day. It seemed 
desirable that there should be two experiments in Demo- 
cracy on this continent. I was, besides, attracted by 
genuine patriotism and fresh hope. The most active 
members of the party were W. A. Foster ^ and W. H. 
Howland ^ afterwards Mayor of Toronto, Mr. Foster 
being the chief literary exponent. But the guiding 
star, the hero of the party, was Mr. Edward Blake ^ an 
advocate and politician of the highest promise, whose 
"Aurora speech"^ had seemed to open a new political 

[1 William Alexander Foster, Q.C., a well-known Barrister of 
Toronto. Died in 1888.] 

P William Holmes Howland was born at Lambton Mills, Ont., 
in 1844 ; entered upon a mercantile career early in life ; elected 
Mayor of Toronto in 1885 and 1886. Died in 1893.] 

PThe Honourable Edward Blake, K.C. Born at Cairngorm, 
Ont., Canada, in 1833 ; M.P. for South Longford, Ireland, from 
1892 till 1907.] 

[* " The bond that united the Imperialists and the advocates of 
independence was national spirit. . . . The greatest intellect of 
the Liberal party felt the impulse. At Aurora * (in 1874) Edward 
Blake startled the more cautious members of the party by advo- 
cating the federation of the Empire, the reorganization of the 
senate, compulsory voting, extension of the franchise, and repre- 
sentation of minorities. His real theme was national spirit. 
National spirit would be lacking until we undertook national re- 
sponsibilities. He described the Canadian people as ' four millions 
of Britons who are not free.' By the policy of England, in which 
we had no voice or control, Canada might be plunged into the 
horrors of war. Recently, without our consent, the navigation of 
the St. Lawrence had been ceded forever to the United States. We 
could not complain of these things unless we were prepared to as- 
sume the full responsibilities of citizenship within the Empire. The 
young men of Canada heard these words with a thrill of en- 
thusiasm, but the note was not struck again. The movement 

•Aurora is a email town north of Toronto in the Province of Ontario. 



CANADIAN POLITICS 443 

era and given a terrible shock to the orthodox and 
senile Liberalism of Mr. George Brown and the Globe. 
I was never a member of the '^ Canada First " Associa- 
tion, and the National Club, of which I was made Presi- 
dent, was social, and intended to bring together Cana- 
dians of all parties. Nor had I anything to do with the 
starting of The Nation,^ though afterwards, when that 
journal was in difficulty, I was persuaded for some time 
to help it with my pen. I also contributed a few articles 
to The Liberal,^ which was set up by Mr. Edward Blake 
as an organ of advanced Liberalism and ''Canada 
First " sentiment in opposition to The Globe. I should 
have done this apart from any special movement of 
opinion if it had been only from my desire to restore 
the independence of the press. But Mr. Edward Blake 
suddenly left his following, let The Liberal die, sur- 
rendered to The Globe, took office in the Mackenzie 
Government,^ which was formed under the auspices of 
George Brown, and left his adherents to the vengeance 
of the enemy. That was the end of ''Canada First," 
and, as it turned out, of the hope of making Canada 
a nation. 

apparently ceased, and politics apparently flowed back into their 
old channels. But while the name, the organization, and the 
organs of ' Canada First ' in the press disappeared, the force and 
spirit remained, and exercised a powerful influence upon Canadian 
politics for many years." — " The Makers of Canada : George 
Brown." By John Lewis. Toronto : Morang and Co. Limited. 
1906. Page 240. — Ed.] 

[^ A weekly paper published in Toronto in 1874 and 1875.] 
[^ The Toronto Liberal;, only existed from January to June, of 
1875.] P In 1873.] 



444 REMINISCENCES 

Mr. Edward Blake was a man of the highest character, 
a powerful advocate, a jurist of repute, and a strong 
though prolix speaker. But his career has shown that 
he mistook his vocation when he undertook to be a 
leader of men. Too much is said about the necessit}^ of 
magnetism. A leader may be, as some of the most 
powerful leaders — Pitt and Peel — have been, desti- 
tute of magnetism, and yet have devoted followers if he 
is unselfish and true at heart to his cause, and to his 
friends. 

More than once, to propitiate the Irish vote, has the 
Parliament at Ottawa voted sympathy with the demand 
for Home Rule, without, it may safely be said, thinking 
carefully about the interest of the Mother-country. 
Encouraged by this, one of the leaders of the move- 
ment ^ came here to set on foot an agitation breath- 
ing threats against the Governor-General. Lord Lans- 
downe, to be out of the way of annoyance, came from 
Ottawa to Toronto. In conjunction with the head of 
the Orangemen, Mr. E. F. Clarke,^ I got up a Defensive 
League ^ over which I had the honour of presiding, and 
which made in the Park at Toronto a strong Loyalist 
demonstration. The politicians were nowhere to be 
seen. However loyal they might be, they could not 



[iMr. William O'Brien, founder of the "United Irish League" ; 
M.P. for various districts in Ireland since 1883 ; frequently prose- 
cuted for political offences.] 

[^ Edward Frederick Clarke, a Canadian journalist and politician ; 
an M.P. ; once Mayor of Toronto.! 

P" The Loyal and Patriotic Union."] 



CANADIAN POLITICS 445 

risk the loss of the Irish vote. Painful proofs of the 
effect of the party system on political character were 
always presenting themselves in Canada and were made 
more signal by the general honesty of the people. 

Whether my course on the Irish question was right 
or wrong, my motives at least were patriotic, I might 
smile at charges of disloyalty levelled against me by 
men who in the Dominion Government or in the On- 
tario Legislature helped to imperil the integrity of the 
United Kingdom by pressing Home Rule Resolutions 
for the purpose of capturing the Irish vote. 

For free trade against protectionism as the cause, 
not of a party, but of the whole community and of hu- 
manity at large, I felt free as a citizen of the world, and 
bound, as a follower and friend of Bright and Cobden, 
to do my best. My best I did, as the ''Handbook of 
Commercial Union "^ will testify, and if the Evil One 
was then too strong for us, discussion enlightens and 
helps the cause. There is the same battle to be fought 
on both sides of the line, and with the same disadvan- 
tage, the forces of protectionism being concentrated in 
a compact party with a wily leader, while those of free 
trade were scattered. A Canadian plunderer of the 

[1" Handbook of Commercial Union: A collection of papers 
read before the Commercial Club of Toronto, with speeches, letters, 
and other documents in favor of Unrestricted Reciprocity with the 
United States." Preceded by an introduction by Mr. Goldwin 
Smith. Edited by G. Mercer Adam. Toronto : Hunter, Rose and 
Co. 1888.] 



446 REMINISCENCES 

people, a man himself living in a fine house, said the 
other day that he would like to see a wall as high as 
Haman's gallows between the two parts of a continent 
which nature has most manifestly decreed to be com- 
mercially one. 

It was as an Englishman that I took part in the move- 
ment in favour of Reciprocity with the United States, 
the manifest dictate, as it seemed to me, of nature 
and of the interest of the Canadian people. Every 
movement of this kind is in a line with the free-trade 
policy which has hitherto been that of Great Britain. 
But the league of log-rolling monopolies in the United 
States was too strong for us, and too strong for us and 
for the real interests of the American and Canadian 
people to this hour it remains. Of the ultimate triumph 
of those views I feel no doubt. 

Another movement, rather social than political, in 
which I took part was that of the Liberal Temperance 
Union, formed to advocate a more hopeful mode of 
dealing with the liquor question than that of the en- 
thusiasts who fancied that they could at once extin- 
guish by legislation a taste coeval and almost coex- 
tensive with humanity. A part of our policy was dis- 
crimination in favour of the lighter against the stronger 
drinks. With two companions, Mr. Mouat ^ and Mr. 
Richardson,^ I went through a campaign against the 

['J. Gordon Mouat, a journalist of Toronto. At one time edi- 
tor of The Lake Magazine.] 

[^C. Gordon Richardson, an expert analytical chemist and (I 
think) medical man of Toronto.] 



CANADIAN POLITICS 447 

Scott Act ^ which was producing the inevitable effects 
of extreme prohibitive legislation in contraband trade, 
contempt of law, perjury, secret drinking, and prac- 
tically increased intemperance. In the upshot, the 
Scott Act was repealed in almost every county which 
had adopted it by larger majorities than those by which 
it had been carried. My campaign showed me a good 
deal of the country and of the people, as well as of the 
rural hotels of Canada, which, for the most part, at 
that time left much to be desired. 

I may say that I had called upon Neal Dow ^ at Port- 
land,^ and had satisfied myself, from the bitterness with 
which the good man spoke of the state of things there, 
that his system of absolute prohibition had miscarried, 
as the general evidence shows. He half in earnest said 
he should like to hang a woman who, when her husband 
had been imprisoned for a liquor offence, sold some 
liquor which he had left in the house to buy herself 
bread. 

Perhaps the most important, or least unimportant, 
of my interventions and meddlings with public affairs 
was the sequel of the movement called that of the 
Patrons.* The Patrons were a body of farmers, who, 

[^ This was the popular name of the " Canada Temperance Act" 
(41 Viet. chap. 16), passed in 1878 by the Dominion Parliament 
after much petitioning and campaigning by the Temperance Party. 
It was a sort of stringent Local Option measure. — Ed.] 

[2 The noted American advocate of the prohibition of the sale of 
intoxicating beverages. He drafted the Maine prohibitory law in 
1851.] 

[' In the State of Maine.] [* The Patrons of Industry.] 



448 REMINISCENCES 

with abundant reason, had combined for the protection 
of the legislative interests of their order. The move- 
ment for a time was very successful ; it almost swept 
Ontario, and sent a large representation to the Provin- 
cial Legislature. But on that floor the Patrons, with 
their political inexperience, and their simple-minded 
openness to intrigue, were between the two regular 
parties as a flock of sheep between two packs of wolves, 
and the result was a collapse. The movement had an 
organ in The Sun,^ which was on the point of sharing 
the doom of the Association. I rescued it from extinc- 
tion, helped to make it the organ of an Association 
acting upon the Legislature instead of acting in it, and 
contributed regularly letters on general politics signed 
"Bystander." Giving my money and my work, I 
claimed the privilege of expressing my own opinions, 
which, however, were, I believe, essentially the same as 
those of my friends and coadjutors in the work, Walter 
D. Gregory ^ and Gordon Waldron.^ 

Alone, or almost alone, I wrote against the attacks 
upon the independence of the South African Republic. 
Great unpopularity for a time was of course the result. 
The people went mad, as they always do when an appeal 
is made by the party of war to the savage passions 

[1 A weekly paper published at Toronto.] 

[2 Walter Dymond Gregory, a Barrister and Solicitor of Toronto, 
born at Gaundle Farm, Montacute, Somersetshire, England, in 1860 ; 
his parents emigrated to Canada nine years afterwards ; he was called 
to the Bar in 1887, and has since practised at Toronto.] 

P Gordon Waldron, a Barrister and Solicitor of Toronto ; born at 
Storrington, Ont., in 1864.] 



CANADIAN POLITICS 449 

which still lurk beneath the varnished surface of civili- 
zation. The Sun for the time lost half its circulation, 
though it regained its position and profited ultimately 
in every respect by the proof which it had given of its 
perfect independence. A journal which sets out to be 
independent has no longer to dread the scissors of the 
censor, but it must expect to face the madness of the 
people as well as the bigotry of party. There is, how- 
ever, nothing in my life on which I look back with more 
satisfaction than I do to the part played by me, how- 
ever feebly, in defence of justice, humanity, the faith of 
treaties, national independence, and at the same time 
the honour of my country, for ever sullied by foul and 
perfidious oppression of the weak. 



2a 



CHAPTER XXVI 

MY LIFE IN CANADA 
1871-1910 

Marriage — "The Grange" — Our Household — General Middle- 
ton — Civic Charities — The Governor-Generalship — The 
Athletic Club — Literary Opportunities — The University 
Question — Sports — Last Days. 

It was in 1871, after spending two years at Cornell, 
that I yearned for a rather more domestic life, and 
went over to reside with a branch of my family ^ settled 
in Canada, In Canada I was destined finally to make 
my home. Four years after my arrival I married ^ my 
dear wife Harriet,^ the widow of William Boulton,^ and 
with her in The Grange at Toronto the rest of my life 
was most happily passed. 

Fortune, however, made for me almost an England of 
my own in Canada. The Grange at Toronto, with its 
lawn and its old elms, is the counterpart in style and 

[» Mr. and Mrs. Charles Colley Foster.] 

[2 September the 30th, 1875.] 

P Harriette Elizabeth Mann Dixon, only daughter of Thomas 
and Mary Bethia (nee Homer) DLxon ; she was born at Boston in 
1825 and died at Toronto on September the 9th, 1909.] 

[^ William Henry Boulton was the son of D'Arey Boulton (who 
built "The Grange"), and was born in 1812. He was thrice Mayor 
of Toronto. Died February, 1874.] 

450 



MY LIFE IN CANADA 451 

surroundings of a little English mansion. It is the only 
specimen of the kind that I happen to have seen on this 
side of the Atlantic. There were one or two more in 
Toronto, but they have succumbed to progress. The 
Grange is an antiquity among mushrooms, having been 
built in 1817. It originally stood outside the city, 
though now it is in the exact centre. In summer, when 
the trees are in leaf, nothing is seen from its door but 
a church spire. In such a mansion lived Miss Austen's 
Enrnia, and her father. We had, moreover, a household 
of faithful and attached domestics, our relations with 
whom were like those of an English family in former 
days. The married ones lived, with their children, on 
the grounds in four cottages, which they took pride in 
making pretty with flowers and creepers, giving an air 
of happy life to the place. In summer, only chimes 
were wanting to make me fancy that I was in England. 
The great elms were a special feature of the place, and 
to their whispering under the starlight I owe some 
lessons in philosophy. 

The Grange contained relics of what for the New 
World was the olden time. It is now passing, under 
my wife's Will, at my suggestion and with my hearty 
concurrence, to the projected Art Museum. Traditions 
were attached to it of horses killed by bears in its gar- 
den; of a Red Indian presenting himself in the bed- 
chamber of its mistress; of British sportsmen losing 
themselves in the wood in which the house stood, and 
being guided to the house by a light in its windows. It 



452 REMINISCENCES 

seems to have been a social centre and political rendez- 
vous of the Family Compact.^ Among other relics of 
an olden time preserved in it were the wine-glasses of 
Governor Simcoe,^ without stands, so that you had to 
empty them before you put them down. I have seen 
at a grand table in Ireland the waiters remaining when 
the cloth had been drawn and standing behind the chairs 
to fill up the half-empty glass the moment it was put 
down. 

My wife was an excellent manager, and we had really 
the counterpart of an old English household, a thing 
rare on this side of the water, rarer in England probably 

[' "The designation 'Family Compact,' . . . did not owe its 
origin to any combination of North American colonists, but was 
borrowed from the diplomatic history of Europe. By the treaty 
signed at Paris on the 15th of August, 1761, by representatives on 
behalf of France and Spain, the contracting parties agreed to guar- 
antee each other's territories, to provide mutual succours by sea and 
land, and to consider the enemy of either as the enemy of both. 
This treaty, being contracted between the two branches of the House 
of Bourbon, is known to History as the Family Compact Treaty, 
and the name was adopted in the Canadas, as well as in the Maritime 
Provinces, to designate the combination which enjoyed a monopoly 
of power and place in the community, and among the members 
whereof there seemed to be a perfect, if unexpressed, understanding, 
that they were to make common cause against any and all persons 
who might attempt to diminish or destroy their influence. — ' The 
Story of the Upper Canadian Rebellion ; Largely Derived from 
Original Sources and Documents.' By John Charles Dent. C. 
Blackett Robinson : Toronto. 1885. — But Mr. Dent's, perhaps, 
may be regarded as an ex parte statement. Lord Durham, in his 
Report, says of the phrase 'Family Compact' that it was 'a name 
not much more appropriate than party designations usually are.' " 
— Ed.] 

[- John Graves Simcoe, first Governor of Upper Canada (1792- 
1794) ; afterwards Governor of San Domingo. Born in 1752 ; died 
in 1806.1 



MY LIFE IN CANADA 453 

than it was. Our butler ^ had been in The Grange for 
forty years. A servant ^ with whom I had parted, 
thirty years after his departure sent me from England 
Christmas holly, which is still stuck over my mantel- 
piece. 

Marriage settled me in Canada. Transplantation to 
England, away from all my wife's connections and 
associations, would hardly have been quite consistent 
with my wife's happiness, though I am sure she would 
have sweetly consented to go with me, and when we 
were visitors in England was perfectly at home in all 
social circles. She was by birth a Bostonian, and had 
been much in Europe. 

Whatever might be said, I never had any intention 
of entering public life in Canada.^ An overture made 

[1 At the time of Goldwin Smith's death, William Chin's term 
of service at The Grange was fifty-two years lacking a month.] 

p James Cooper, coachman. Afterwards in the Royal Artil- 
lery, I think.] 

[' Mr. Goldwin Smith must have forgotten that on April the 
18th, 1874, he wrote from 15, The Crescent, Oxford, in his own. 
hand to Mr. Charles Lindsey, of Toronto, as follows : — 
"My dear Lindsey, 
* * * * * * * * *" 

" It is not easy at this distance to see what is going on, but I 
fear ' Canada First ' has taken the field rather prematurely and got 
entangled, by its sense of its own weakness, in equivocal and com- 
promising alliances. 

" I hold to my intention of getting into the Provincial Parlia- 
ment, for a Session or two, if I can ; though no doubt it will be 
diflficult with George Brown against me. I want to get a little prac- 
tical insight into Canadian politics without which I cannot write 
about them with confidence. Here I was not in Parliament, but I 
was thrown almost from boyhood among public men, which made up 
for my want of parliamentary experience in some measure at least. 



454 REMINISCENCES 

me, though the special case was one which called for 
consideration, was declined. After settling in Canada, 
I declined an invitation sent me on the part of a strong 
Liberal constituency in England. It was not likely 
that I would seek the suffrages of those to whom I was 
a stranger. But as an independent observer and writer 
I continued to take a lively interest in public affairs. 

^£ r^ ^iC sk ^tf ^(f sl£ 

As an Englishman I had now and then to take up the 
cudgels for my country. On each of the several oc- 
casions on which the British Government was called 
upon to negotiate on behalf of Canada with foreign 
powers there was an outbreak of discontent at the result, 
and England was said to have failed to get justice for her 
colony. It was forgotten that the whole responsibility 
rested on the Imperial country, and that the colony in 
case of war would have been helpless. I took it upon 
me to say that the Imperial Government, instead of 
neglecting Canadian interests, had always given them 
most anxious attention, and done for them all that 
negotiation could do. To Canada, defenceless as this 

" You will not proclaim this, of course, but if you should have 
an opportunity of doing anything to open the way for me, I will 
ask you kindly to bear my wish in mind. 

" I should get on very well with M. Cameron, though we may 
not agree about the propriety of cutting off Charles the First's 

head. 

" Ever yours truly, 

"GoLDWiN Smith. 
"Chas. Lindsey Esq." 

This is taken from the holograph letter kindly lent me by Mr. 
George G. S. Lindsey, K.C., son of its recipient.] 



MY LIFE IN CANADA 455 

broken line of provinces is, war would inevitably be 
ruin. 

A most painful incident and one which threw a 
glaring light on the system of political party was the 
attack on the character of the English General, Middle- 
ton ^ who had commanded against the French Half- 
Breed rebels at Batoche.^ The heart of the French at 
Quebec had been with their rebel kinsman,^ and though, 
to save appearances, two battalions of French militia 
were called out, they were never brought into action, 
and one at least of the colonels withdrew from his com- 
mand, and the execution of Riel was bitterly resented 
by the French of Quebec and denounced by their 
representatives at Ottawa. To propitiate them an 
attack was made in Parliament on General Middleton's 
honour. He was accused of having stolen a bale of 
furs, of laying lawless hands on a billiard table and a 
horse, as well as having maltreated the people. The 
poor old soldier, beset by these politicians, was be- 
wildered, and in that assembly no one was found to 
take his part. He was in peril of his character. I 
invited him to my house, got the facts from him, drew 
up and printed his case.* Two of the charges, that of 
stealing or permitting to be stolen a billiard table, and 

[1 Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Dobson Middleton, in com- 
mand of the Canadian Militia from 1884 till 1890.] 

[2 In the French Half-Breed rising in the North-West Territories 
of Canada in 1885.] 

[3 Louis Riel, the leader.] 

[* In the Toronto Evening Telegram of August the 21st, 1890, 
and afterwards privately in pamphlet form and with no imprint.] 



456 REMINISCENCES 

that of seizing a horse, were dropped for total lack of 
evidence but without pronouncing a verdict of acquittal. 
The charge of maltreating the people was declared to 
be untrue by the Catholic Bishop of the district. I got 
up a public dinner at Toronto for General Middleton, 
and so for him the matter ended well. Of the charge 
of stealing furs no more was heard in Parliament. It 
seems that he had rather hastily allowed a bale of furs 
of no extraordinary value belonging to a man who had 
gone into the rebel camp to be divided among the 
members of his staff. In the old country there is still 
something to keep the political game within the boimds 
of personal honour. 

It is with serener pleasure, however, that I recall 
my connection of thirty years with the charities of 
Toronto, in which my coadjutor was Mr. J. E. Pell, 
Secretary of the St. George's Society, a man who has 
spent a long life in the humble and untitled service of 
beneficence, a science of which he was the master. 
He lived to a good old age,^ and if a memory charged 
with recollections of good works could make him happy, 
he must have been happy in his armchair. With 
him I shared some charitable enterprises, such as the 
labour test and the creche, and helped to do the little 
that could be done to introduce some sort of organiza- 
tion and principle into the chaos of Toronto charities, 
an effort in which we had to face the stolid indifference 
of the Council and the bigoted opposition of the House 

[1 He died in Toronto in February, 1903.] 



MY LIFE IN CANADA 457 

of Industry; I am afraid I must add in face of the 
general apathy of Toronto wealth, the ears of which 
were little open to any appeal of benevolence or social 
duty. It was from people of small or moderate means, 
whose souls were not enslaved by money, that most 
of the support came. 

It was remarked on that occasion, and I am afraid 
with justice, that Toronto wealth is not munificent. 
It certainly is not, compared with the wealth of the 
United States. The reason perhaps is, partly at least, 
the comparative weakness of patriotic ambition, and 
the desire of local gratitude in the colonial breast. 
The colonist who is making money looks, perhaps 
unconsciously, for social recognition and gratitude, not 
so much to the colony in which his money is made, as 
to the Imperial country in which he may end his days, 
possibly with a title. 

Once, however, within my experience the purse of 
Dives was opened. I received an invitation to a ''con- 
ference " about a charity specially patronized by a 
Peeress who, with her husband, then Governor-General, 
had honoured Toronto with a visit. I went, expecting 
what an invitation to a conference implied. Instead 
of this, I found myself in a large room full, not of au- 
thorities on questions of charity, but of the wealthy 
magnates of Toronto. Her Ladyship made a speech 
and left the room. Then, instead of a conference about 
her charity, there was a call, evidently prearranged, 
for a subscription, and in a quarter of an hour or little 



458 REMINISCENCES 

more there was drawn, in some cases visibly wrung, 
from the lords of the dollar a sum the quarter of which 
local charity could hardly have coaxed out of them 
in a year. 

Do what you will, spout loyalty as much as you 
please, a dependency is not a nation. Of this the 
Governor-Generalship is the symbol, and it is nothing 
more. It has not made its influence felt in raising social 
any more than it has in raising political character, 
or in controlling political action. Ottawa is the seat 
of a petty court and of all that a petty court is sure to 
generate. The man has not been long enough in Can- 
ada to know it well when his term expires. The affec- 
tation of Royalty is ridiculous. Lord Dufferin ^ was 
very fond of making speeches, and the editor of a lead- 
ing Toronto paper told me that the speeches were sent 
on beforehand to the press, marked with "applause." 

Of the Viceregal control over political action we have 
just had an example in the passing by the Governor- 
General of the Act of a Provincial Parliament which 
his Minister of Justice, in laying it before him, desig- 
nated as '^ confiscation without compensation," and 
to force a way for which the Provincial Ministry had 
closed the gate of public justice.^ 

[* The first Marquess of Dufferin and Ava : Governor-General 
of Canada from 1872 to 1878.] 

[2 The reference is to the case of the Florence Mining Company 
(Limited) v. the Cobalt Lake Mining Company (Limited), in 
which the ownership of the property was in dispute. (See 18 On- 
tario Law Reports, page 275.) The Provincial Legislature passed 
two Acts, in effect confirming the' title of the defendants : 6 Edward 



MY LIFE IN CANADA 459 

My greatest disappointment in the charitable or 
benevolent line was the Athletic Club, on the goodly- 
building of which, now turned into a technical school, 
I look with sadness when I pass it. Young men must 
have pleasure; and young men in a city where they 
have no home will be apt to take to pleasures which 
are not healthy. The Athletic Club, social as well as 
athletic, was intended to provide healthy pleasure for 
our numerous bank-clerks, and other young men em- 

VII (1906), Chapter 12; and 7 Edward VII (1907), Chapter 15 
— the second, I am informed, while the case was sub judice. — It 
is but fair to state, however, that by the Judgment of the Privy 
Council (delivered on March the 18th, 1910), the plaintiffs were 
declared not to have proved ownership. — The phrase of the Min- 
ister of Justice (the Hon. AUan Bristol Aylesworth) referred to, is 
in his Report to the Governor-General re the two Ontario statutes 
above cited. The sentence in which it occurs reads as follows : 
I' The legislation in question, even though confiscation of property 
without compensation, and so an abuse of legislative power, does not 
fall within any of the aforesaid enumeration." 

I rather think myself that Mr. Goldwin Smith has also here in his 
mind the passing by the Governor-General (in spite of petitions for 
Disallowance) of two Acts of the Ontario Legislature having re- 
ference to its formation of a so-called Hydro-Electric Commission 
for the transmission of electrical power to municipalities, viz. : 
"An Act to Validate certain By-Laws . . ." etc. (8 Edward VII, 
Chapter 22); and " An Act to Amend an Act . . . to validate certain 
contracts ..." etc. (9 Edward VII, Chapter 19) ; for Mr. Smith 
often confounded the two cases both in speech and in writing. — • 
In the latter of these Acts occur the words "every action which has 
been heretofore brought and is now pending wherein the validity 
of the said contract ... is attacked or called in question . . . 
shall be and the same is hereby forever stayed." (See the columns 
of the [Toronto] Financial Post and of the [Toronto] Canada Law 
Journal from 1907 to 1910. — Professor A. V. Dicey's Opinion on 
both questions, which Mr. Smith obtained, will be found in the last- 
named periodical, Volume XLV, Numbers 13 and 14, pages 459, 
et seq. July, 1909.) — Ed.] 



460 REMINISCENCES 

ployed in our commercial institutions. Some of our 
best citizens took part in the enterprise. But the com- 
mercial magnates, who had a special interest in the 
scheme, behaved as, I am sorry to say, was their wont. 
The Bank of Commerce alone lent a helping hand. 
I cannot pretend that the behaviour of the young men 
themselves was very gallant, or that they stood by 
those who were struggling and spending money in their 
interest as English youths would have done. The 
Club was within easy walk of ''The Grange," and I 
had imagined myself strolling thither often in old age 
and looking on at the enjoyments of youth. But for 
my best efforts wasted and a large outlay of money 
I had only the consolation of feeling that the failure was 
no fault of mine. 

A literary field Ontario could hardly be, walled in 
as she was by the French Province on one side, on 
another by the wilderness which bounds her to the 
west, and to the south by the United States. The 
literary market of the United States, in spite of the 
identity of language, is separate. A little popular 
History of the United States ^ written by me had some 
sale. It was an exception which proved the rule. It 
had the advantage of being written by a neutral, though 
one who knew the United States and took a native's 
interest in their story. But my life as a literary man 

[» "The United States: An Outline of Political History; 1492- 
1871." By Goldwin Smith, D.C.L. New York and London: 
MacmiUan. 1901.] 



MY LIFE IN CANADA 461 

in the higher sense of the term was at an end. My 
Oxford dreams of literary achievement never were or 
could be fulfilled in Canada. Canadians who seek 
literary distinction, as some have done, not in vain, 
go to England. 

The University question was one in which I naturally 
felt great interest. While the University of Toronto, 
then King's College, was confined to Anglicans, the 
other churches had founded separate universities for 
themselves. When that barrier was thrown down, 
Bishop Strachan,^ a masterful but wrong-headed man, 
led an Anglican secession and founded Trinity.^ The 
resources of the Province, which, especially since the 
enlargement of the curriculum by the inclusion of 
science were not more than sufficient to maintain a 
single university on a proper scale, were now scattered 
among half a dozen bodies, all with a power of granting 
degrees. Visiting one of these, I found a staff of two 
teachers besides the head, a library containing two 
bookcases, one full of common school books, the other 
of Government reports; science represented by a few 
instruments on the floor of a hall; and a museum 
represented by a small hortus siccus, and some geologi- 
cal specimens scattered, like the scientific instruments, 
on the floor. This institution was empowered to grant 
degrees in all the subjects of human knowledge. I 

[1 The Hon. and Right Rev. J. Strachan, born at Aberdeen, 1778 ; 
went to Canada in 1799 ; joined the Church of England ; Executive 
CounciUor, 1818 ; first Bishop of Toronto, 1840. Died 1867.] 

P The University of Trinity College, Toronto.] 



462 REMINISCENCES 

was invited to speak on the question at Trinity, where 
I pleaded for combination of resources to sustain one 
worthy university and advocated the rehgious college 
in a secular university as the solution of that part of 
the problem. My plea was well received. But the 
Provost of Trinity about that time was a very excellent 
man transplanted late from England, who seemed to 
feel that he was in an alien element and to shrink from 
closer contact with it. I went on preaching upon the 
same text, though Colonel, afterwards Sir Casimir Gzow- 
ski ^ came to my aid, seeing that great opportunities were 
being missed by Canadian youths for lack of a good 
school of practical science. At last a legacy left by 
Mr. George Gooderham ^ to the Methodist University 
at Cobourg on condition of its migration to Toronto 
brought about that in favour of which I might have 
preached for ever. I enjoyed the success, although the 
credit was not mine. 

However, in the main the true policy prevailed. 
The chief exception was Queen's University at Kings- 



[1 Sir Casimir Stanislaus Gzowski, K.C.M.G., born at St. Peters- 
burg in 1813, a son of Stanislaus, Count Gzowski. Having taken 
part in the Polish insurrection of 1830-1831 he was after imprison- 
ment shipped to America. There he practised law in Pennsylvania. 
In 1842 went to Canada ; took up engineering and was employed 
in railway construction and bridge building. Appointed Lieutenant- 
Colonel in 1873 ; Honorary A.D.C. to the Queen, 1879. Died 1898.] 

[2 George Gooderham, born at Scole, Norfolk, England, in 1830 ; 
President of the Gooderham and Worts Distilling Co. ; of the Bank 
of Toronto ; of the Western Canada Loan and Savings Co. ; a 
Director of the General Hospital (all of Toronto) ; and a Governor 
of the University of Toronto. Died in 1905.] 



MY LIFE IN CANADA 463 

ton, the Principal ^ of which perhaps relieved himself 
of a little of his chagrin by a critical article in a London 
Review.^ Reconcentration was accompanied by the 
admission of science and other utilities. The exclu- 
sively classical or mathematical University, though we 
may venerate its memory, is a thing of the old time 
and the old world. 

Besides the part I took in the foundation of the 
Athletic Club, I was President for some years of a 
Lawn Tennis Club, and always thought it right to do 
what I could for the reasonable encouragement of 
sports, not forgetting the playing fields of Eton, though 
it may be questioned whether Waterloo was won there. 
Reasonable sports are good for moral as well as for 
physical health. But I hope I never pandered to the 
dominant craze for athletics, of which I am afraid 
Oxford and Cambridge, Universities of the wealthy, 
were the birthplaces, and to which University author- 
ities have weakly pandered, betraying thereby their 
duty to their students, and to the parents of those 
students, who sent them, perhaps at a great sacrifice, 



[1 The Rev. George Monro Grant, born at the Albion Mines, 
N.S., 1835 ; Principal of Queen's College, Kingston, Ont., Canada, 
from 1877 till his death in 1902.] 

P "Canada and the Empire," by G. M. Grant, in The National 
Review for July, 1896. No. 161. Volume XXVII, pp. 673-685. — 
Goldwin Smith published "A Reply" in The Canadian Magazine of 
October, 1896. Vol. VII, pages 540-544. And to this Principal 
Grant answered under the title of "Canada and the Empire: A 
Rejoinder to Dr. Goldwin Smith," in The Canadian Magazine of 
November, 1896. Vol. VIII, pages 73-78.] 



464 REMINISCENCES 

to the University, to be trained for intellectual callings, 
not for those of porters or stevedores. Mens sana in 
corpore sano, by all means; but sanus means healthy, 
not muscular. By this glorification of the animal we 
get up a false standard of merit specially misbecoming 
a University. The same man can rarely be an athlete 
and a good student, since it is from the same fund of 
nervous energy that we draw for the work of the body 
and for that of the brain. In this highly commercial 
age, when success in life means success in making 
money, University training has its detractors who tell 
you that an office-boy of fourteen is worth more than 
a University graduate of four-and-twenty. It will be 
difficult to answer this if the graduate has spent his 
time in the abnormal development of his muscles; 
otherwise we might answer the commercial detractor 
by asking what it is that he means by 'life.' 

My wife's name on the tomb,^ my joy departed, I 
still did not want to spend the rest of my days in idle 
gloom. My eyes were turned to Cornell, one of the 
happiest scenes of my life. I was still, for my age, 
vigorous and able to hold the pen, which, not the sword 
or the spade, had been my instrument of labour. At 
Cornell a new building of the University had been called 
after my name, and, what was more to the purpose, 
teaching in History seemed likely to be of special use 
to American youth in the coming time. I might have 

[1 Mrs. Goldwin Smith died on September the 9th, 1909.] 




Photograph of a Death-mask of Goldwin Smith. 

Made by Mr. Walter S. AUward, of Toronto, on June the ninth, 1910. 



MY LIFE IN CANADA 465 

gone down to my grave in honour, as I certainly should 
in peace. 

That hope was suddenly blighted, that door to a 
happy and perhaps not unfruitful old age and exit, 
was shut.^ I received a shock which ruined my intel- 
lect, my memory, my powers as a teacher. Without 
the aid of a first-rate Secretary, I could not have 
stumbled on as I have done. 

[' He is referring to the accident by which he broke his hip on 
February the 2d, 1910.] 



2h 



INDEX 



Aberdeen, the fourth Earl of, 185 ; 

206; 287. 
Abingdon, the sixth Earl of, 53. 
Acland, Dr. (afterwards Sir H.), 283. 
Adams, Charles Francis, 325 ; 327. 
Africa, South, war in. See Boer war. 
"African Confessors," 109. 
Agassiz, 372. 
Alabama, the, 322. 

Albany, H. R. H. the Duchess of, 282. 
Albert, Prince. See Prince Consort, 

the. 
Alboni, Marietta, 151. 
Alderson, Georgina Caroline, 164. 
Alpine tours, 88 ; 387 
Althorp, Lord, 69. 
Amalfi, 394. 
America, CivU War in, 221 ; 238 ; 

319; England's attitude, 323; 

327, 328; 333-335; 339-340. 
Andersonville prison-camp, 335. 
Annexation, 439, et seq.; 446. 
Anti-Corn-Law League, 216; 256. 
Aram, Eugene, 386. 
Arch, Joseph, 13 ; 228. 
Archibald, Adams George, 416. 
Arnold, Matthew, 70, 71 ; 151. 
Arnold, Thomas, 67 ; 396. 
Arrivabene, 155. 

Ashburton, the second Baron, 140. 
Ashburton, Lady, 140, et seq. 
Astley's, 293. 
Athenaeum Club, the, 158. 
Athletic Club, the, 459, 460. 
Athletics, 367-368; 463-464. 
Aumale, due D', 146. 
"Aurora Speech," Mr. Blake's, 442, 

443. 
Autonomy Bills, the, 428. 
Awdry, Sir John, 107. 

B 

Bacon, John, 76. 
Bagley, Sir Thomas, 215. 



Ballinasloe Horse Fair, 309. 

Balliol College, 99. 

Bancroft, George, 332; 400, 401. 

Bar, the, 129. 

Bayard, Thomas Francis, 401. 

Beaconsfield, Earl of. See Disraeli, 
Benjamin. 

"Bedgebury," 163. 

Bellamy's "Looking Backward," 230. 

Bentham, 289. 

Bentinck, Lord George, 176; 180, 
181 ; 183 ; 204 ; 264. 

Beresford-Hope, Alexander J., 162 ; 
178. 

Bernard, Mountague, 51. 

Bernhardt, Sara, 151. 

Besant, Mrs. Annie, 80. 

Bethell, Richard, first Baron West- 
bury, 109. 

Biota, 93. 

Bismarck, 155 ; 164. 

Blake, Edward, 442, 443; his char- 
acter, 444. 

Blanc, Louis, 96 ; 155. 

Boardman, Douglas, 378. 

Bodley, Sir Thomas, 148. 

Boer War, the, 211; 219; 448 et 
seq. 

Boston, arrival at, 328 et seq. 

Boulton, William Henry, 450. 

Bourassa, Henri, 427. 

Bouverie, Edward Playdell-, 111. 

Bowring, Sir John, 289. 

Brady and Tate, 4. 

Braham, John, 145. 

Brain, promise to bequeath, 378. 

Breton (his mother's name), 5. 

Bridge, 400. 

Bright, John, 174; 216; 218; 223; 
228, 229; 234; his oratory, 238 
et seq. ; his character, 239-240 ; 
256; 288; 320; quoted, 358; as 
an orator, 405. 

British Columbia, 420 et seq. 

Brodrick, G. C, 296. 

Brougham, Lord, 25; 156; 229. 



467 



468 



INDEX 



Brown, George, character of, 433 et 

seq.; 443; 453. 
Brown, Gordon, 433. 
Bruno, Giordano, 397. 
Bryan, W. J., 404. 
Bryant, W. C., 332. 
Buckland, William, 67. 
Buffalo, extinction of the, 418. 
Bulley, Frederick, 51. 
Bulwer-Lytton, first Baron Lytton, 

154. 
Burghley, 253. 
Burke, Edmund, 300. 
Burke, T. H., 301. 
Burns, Mrs. See Crooks, Miss. 
Burrard, Sir George, 274. 
Butler, General Ben, 339; 348; 

appearance and character, 349 ; 

anecdotes of, 350. 
Butler's "Analogy," 65. 
Bystander, the, 448. 

C 

Caen, 93. 

Cameron, M., 454. 

Camorra, the, 392. 

Campbell, John, first Baron, 157. 

Campbell and Stratheden, Lord, 437. 

Camp meetings, 376-377. 

Canada, 282 ; English ignorance of, 
385 et seq.; the North-Wcst, 414 
et seq.; the North-West rebellion, 
411; history of, 424-425; con- 
stitution of, 425 ; confederation of, 
425-426. 

"Canada First," 441 et seq.; 453. 

Canada Temperance Act. See Scott 
Act. 

Canadian Pacific Railway, 418 et 
seq.; 421; 438. 

Canino, Prince de, 417. 

Canning, Charles John, Earl, 161 ; 
183; 185; 203. 

Canning, Sir Stratford (afterwards 
Lord Stratford de Redcliffe), 287. 

Canterbury (in New Zealand) , 209. 

Carabas, Marquis of, 255. 

Cardwell, Viscount, 161 ; 185 et seq. ; 
202; 301-302. 

Carlingford, Baron, 144. 

Carlisle, the seventh Earl of, 301. 

Carlyle, Mrs., 142. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 141; 167; 331; 
358. 



Caroline, Queen, 157. 

Carthusian Monastery, 388. 

Cartwright, Sir Richard, 438. 

Cascadilla, 374. 

Cashel steeplechases, 309. 

Catholic emancipation, 252. 

Catholicism, Roman, 397. 

Catholics and Protestants, war be- 
tween, 308. 

Cavendish, Lord F. C, 301. 

Cayuga Lake, 374-375. 

Cecil, Lady, M. A. C. H., 163. 

Cecil, Lord Robert. See Salisbury, 
third Marquess of. 

Chamberlain, Joseph, 210. 

Charities, Civic, 456, 457. 

Chartists, the, 292, 293. 

Chase, S. P., 338. 

Cheese fair at Reading, 10. 

Chesson, F. W., 362. 

Chevening, Lord Stanhope's seat, 
147. 

Chimney-sweeps, 9. 

Chin, Wmiam, 453. 

Chinese War. ^ee Lorcha War. 

Christian Sociahsts, 361. 

Christmas festivities, 7, 8. 

Churchill, Lord Randolph, 173. 

Circuits, 123. 

Civil War, the, in America. ^See 
America, Civil War in. 

Clarke, E. F., 444. 

Clerical tests, effect of removal of, 
381, 382. 

Clive, Lord, 282. 

Clough, Arthur Hugh, 72, 73. 

Clubs, observations on, 158. 

Clumber, 191. 

Cobalt Lake Mining Co., case of, 
458. 

Cobden, Richard, 174; 216, 217; 
223 ; 228, 229 ; 232 ; his character 
and temperament, 242-243 ; his 
style, 243 ; the French treaty, 247 ; 
quoted, 248 ; burial place of, 250 ; 
256 ; quoted, 261 ; his attack on 
Peel, 261 ; his letter to Peel, 265 ; 
320. 

Cockburn, Lord Chief Justice, 124 ; 
359. 

Coercion Bills, 265; 268; 316. 

Coleridge, Edward, 40 ; 201. 

Coleridge, John Duke, first Baron, 
47; 107; 110. 



INDEX 



469 



Coleridge, Sir John, 116; 123. 

College, the, at Eton, 39. 

Colonial question, the, 169-170 ; 210 ; 
221-222 ; 245 ; 424-425 ; 439 ; 454. 

Commissions, the University, (i) the 
Commission of Inquiry, 98 et seq. ; 
names of the Commissioners, 101 
et seq. ; (ii) the Executive Com- 
mission, 107 et seq. ; the names of 
the Commissioners, 107 et seq.; 
signing of the document, 112 et seq. 

Common Room Society, 282. 

Competition-wallahs, 309. 

Comyn, Patrick. See Cummin, Pat- 
rick. 

Conde, Prince de, 160. 

Congreve, Richard, 51. 

"Coningsby," 162. 

Conington, John, 52, 86. 

Cook, John Douglas, 162 ; 165. 

Cooper, James, 453. 

Cope, Sir John, 16 ; 20. 

"Copenhagen" (Wellington's horse), 
24. 

Cornell, Ezra, 366-370. 

Cornell University, 367 et seq. ; ar- 
rival at, 371 ; site of, ib.; lectures 
at, 399 ; hopes of revisiting, 464. 

Corn laws, the, 252 ; 260. See also 
Manchester school, the. 

Corson, Professor Hiram, 378. 

Cory, W. J. See Johnson, William. 

Cosmos Club, the, 400. 

Courts of law, English, 124. 

Coxo, H. O., 279. 

Cradock, E. H., 280. 

Cradock, Mrs., 280. 

Cranworth, Baron, 313. 

Craufurds, the, 159-160. 

Crimean War, the, 195 ; 219 ; 287. 

Criminal cases, appeal in, 125. 

Croker, John Wilson, 137. 

Crooks, Miss, 391. 

Crowder, R. B., 124. 

Cummin, Patrick, 150. 

Currency, paper, 337. 

Curtis, G. W., 372 ; 402. 

Czar, Nicholas I. See Nicholas I. 



D 



Daily News, The, 168 ; 170. 
Dalhousie, first Marquess of, 185 : 
205. 



Dampier, John Lucius, 101. 

Dana, Charles, 413. 

Darwin's theories, 373. 

Davis, Jefferson, 194 ; 324 ; 355. 

Deer-shooting, 20. 

Delane, J. T., 232 ; 292. 

Democracy, 225 ; 233 ; American, 

seamy side of, 402. 
Demys, the, of Magdalen, 52. 
Denison, J. E. See Ossington, first 

Viscount. 
Denison, J. E., Viscount Ossington, 

192. 
Denmark, Crown Prince of, 283. 
Derby, fourteenth Earl of, 106 ; 180 ; 

255; 267. 
Desmond, Countess of, 108. 
Devrient, 152. 
Dickens, Charles, 154. 
Disestablishment, 196 ; 224. 
Disraeli, Benjamin, 106; 148; 155; 

161-162; 164; 168; 170-171; 

175 et seq.; 178-182 ; as a speaker, 

179; his "Life of Lord George 

Bentinck," 181; 194; 198; 202; 

his letter to Peel, 212-213; his 

speech on Peel's reference to this 

letter, ib.; his political character, 

255; 264; 310. 
Dixon, B. Homer, 5. 
Dixon, Harriette E. M. <See Smith, 

Mrs. Goldwin. 
Douro, Lady, 23. 
Dow, Neal, 447. 
Dresden, 90. 

Drummond, Edward, 263. 
Duff, James Grant, 147. 
Dufferin, the first Marquess of, 458. 
Dukinfield, Sir Henry Robert, 12 ; 

159. 
Dukinfield, John Lloyd, 12. 
Dukinfield, Katherine, afterwards 

Mrs. R. P. Smith, 12. 
Dukinfield, Lady, 159. 
Dukinfield, Sir Nathaniel, 12. 
Dundas, Sir David, 134. 
Durham, Lord, 429. 



E 



Edlund, R. C, 409. 

Education Commission, 1 16 ; names 

of Commissioners, ib. 
Education, State-aided, 231. 



470 



INDEX 



Edward VII, King, 191 ; 281. 

Electioneering, 294. 

Elections, anecdotes of, 296-297. 

Elections of 1886, G. S.'s share in, 
298-299. 

Elgin, the eighth Earl, 204; 219; 
289; 426; 428. 

Ellesmere, the second Earl of, 107. 

Emerson, 331. 

"Empire, The," 168; 170. 

Engleheart, Sir J. Gardner D., 131. 

"Essays and Reviews," 72. 

Eton, life at, 33 ; masters at, 40 ; 
religion at, 42 ; boys, character of, 
42; beauty of, 48. 

Eveleigh, John, 99. 

Everett, Edward, 66 ; platform ora- 
tory of, 405. 

Eyre, Governor, 189, 225 ; 357. 



Factory, the, and its influences, 327, 

328. 
Factory Acts, 229. 
Factory system, the, 363. 
Fagging (at Eton), 35. 
Falaise, 93. 

"Family Compact," the, 452. 
Family likenesses, 329. 
Farmers, sixty years ago, 14. 
Farrer, the first Baron, 47. 
Faucit, Helen, 151. 
Fearne, Charles, 121. 
Fellows of Colleges, 75. 
Fellowships of Magdalen, 73. 
Fiske, Daniel Willard, 370; 398. 
Florence, 388 ; 398. 
Florence Mining Co., case of, 458. 
Forbes, J. M., 321 ; 330. 
Forbury, the, at Reading, 10. 
Forster, W. E., 316, 317. 
Foster, Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Colley, 

450. 
Foster, W. A., 442. 
Fox-hunting, sixty years ago, 20. 
Eraser, James, Bishop of Manchester, 

15; 20; 119. 
Freeman, E. A., 20 ; 70-71 ; 277. 
Free trade, 183; 216-217; 246; 

256-257; 269; 445. 
French Emperor. See Napoleon 

III. 
Friar Street, Reading, 5. 



Froude, James Anthony, 72 ; 167 ; 

175. 
Frowd, J. B., 279. 



G 



Gaisford, Dean, 50. 

Garibaldi, 155; 220. 

Garrison, W. L., 334. 

George IV, 316. 

Gladstone, W. E., 38; 101; 105; 
161; 179; 185; 193; his advo- 
cacy of the cause of the oppressed, 
194 ; his attitude on the American 
civil war, 194-195 ; his attitude 
on the Crimean War, 195 ; his 
character, ib.; his disposition, 197 ; 
his attitude on the Irish question, 
197 ; as a statesman, ib. ; as a 
speaker, 198 ; his versatility, 199 ; 
his classical studies, ih. ; his writ- 
ings, ib.; his Homeric theories, 
ib. ; his appearance, 200 ; 203 ; 
234-236; 284-285; 294; 310; 
317; 324; as an orator, 405. 

Gladstone, Mrs., 200. 

Globe, The [Toronto], 433, 434 ; 443. 

Godkin, E. L., 413. 

Godley, J. R., 169 ; 209. 

Goldwin Smith Hall, 379. 

Goldwin, Mr. (G. S.'s mother's 
uncle), 5. 

Goodall, Joseph, 43. 

Gooderham, George, 462. 

Good Friday, 8. 

Gordon, William, 358. 

Graham, Sir John R. G., 180 ; 185 ; 
205. 

"Grammar of Assent," the, 62. 

"Grange, The" (Lord Ashburton's 
House), 140. 

"Grange, The" (Goldwin Smith's 
House), 450 et seq. 

Grant, General U. S., 135; 339; 
his character, 342 et seq.; his 
failure as President, 343. 

Grant, Rev. G. M., 463. 

Granville, the second Earl, 208. 

Greek Letter Societies, 368. 

Gregory, Walter D., 448. 

Gregory, Sir William, 168. 

Greville's "Memoirs," 175; 183; 
200. 

Grey, the third Earl, 212. 



INDEX 



471 



Griffith, Moses, 279. 

Grisi, 152. 

Grote, Mr. and Mrs. George, 147. 

Guizot, 25 ; 94. 

GuUy, J. M., 384. 

Guy Fawkes's Day, 10. 

Gzowski, Sir Casimir, 462. 



H 



Hallam, Arthur, 136. 

Hallam. Henry, 47 ; 136. 

"Hamlet," 152. 

Hampden, Renn DicLson, 143. 

" Handbook of Commercial Union," 

445. 
Hannibal, 395. 
Hanover, travels in, 91. 
Harcourt, Sir W. G. G. Vernon, 163 ; 

281. 
Hardinge, the second Viscount, 178. 
Hardy, Gathorne, 276. 
Hare, Augustus J. C., 396. 

Harper, the Reverend , 14. 

Harrowby, the second Earl of, 107. 
Hastings, Warren, Life of, 167. 
Haultain, T. Arnold, 379. 
Hawtrey, E. C., 43, 44. 
Hayward, Abraham, 148. 
Head, Sir Edmund Walker, 434. 
Hemming, G. W., 163. 
Herald, the New York, 283. 
Herbert, Sidney, 161; 176; 185; 

202; 260; 291. 
Hertford, third Marquess of, 137 ; 179. 
Hewson, General Butt, 432. 
Heydukoff, H., 34. 
Heywood, James, 100. 
Hincks, Sir F., 437. 
Hinds, Samuel, 101. 
Hodgson, Francis, 43. 
Home, Daniel Dunglas, 384. 
Home Rule, 196; 234; 241 

270; 285; 294; 298; 305 

444, 445. 
Hook, Theodore, 134. 
Hooker, Gen. Joseph, 347. 
Hooker, Richard, 79. 
Hope, Alexander J. Beresford. 

Beresford-Hope. 
Hope, Thomas, 162. 
Hopkins, J. Castell, quoted, 422, 
Horsman, Edward, 178. 
Hospitals, military, 335 ; 352. 



245; 
317; 



See 



Houghton (Monckton Milnes), Lord, 

135. 
House of Commons, speeches in, 150. 
House of Lords, 226. 
Household, his father's, 29. 
Howe, Joseph, 436 et seq. 
Howland, W. H., 442. 
Howley, Archbishop, 58. 
Hughes, Thomas, 209 ; 361. 
Hunter, Sir Paul, 175. 
Huntington, Lucius Seth, 438. 
Huntley and Palmer, 2. 
Huxley, T. H., 199 ; 138. 



Imperial Federation, 222 ; 427. 
Indian Mutiny, the, 203. 
Inglis, Sir R. H., 132. 
Inglis, Rev. Wm., 433. 
Ionian Isles, cession of, 168. 
Ireland, visits to, 301 ; its beauty and 

its people, 302 ; crime in, 306 ; 

clergy in, 307 et seq. ; constabulary 

of, 308; second visit to, 313; 

neglect of, by Royalty, 314 et seq. 
Irish, character of the, 303. 
"Irish History and Irish Character," 

Mr. G. S.'s book on, 235; 304. 
Irish question, the. See Home Rule. 
Italians, cruelty of, to animals, 393. 
Italy, early travels in, 95 ; second 

visit to, 391. 
Ithaca, first visit to, 371 ; life at, 374, 

375; inhabitants of, 377, 407. 



Jackson, Andrew, 333 ; 399. 
Jamaica, outbreak in, 357 ; floggings 

in, 357 ; committee, 359. 
James I, King, 284. 
Japan, military power of, 423. 
Jelf, W. E., 66. 
Jenkyns, Richard, 99. 
Jerome Bonaparte, 24. 
Jesuits' Estate Bill, 429. 
Jeune, Francis (afterwards Lord St. 

Helier), 101; 102. 
"Jingoism," 219. 
John of Nepomuk, Saint, 80. 
Johnson, Andrew, 349. 
Johnson, George Henry Sacheverell, 

101; 104. 



472 



INDEX 



Johnson, William (afterwards Cory), 

47. 
Jones, Mrs., of Pantglas, 290. 
Jowett, Benjamin, 83 ; 100 ; 195. 
Judges, their responsibility, 127-128. 
"Junius," 109. 



K 



Kean, Charles, 152-153. 

Keate, John, 40. 

Keble, John, 64. 

Kell, Robert and Samuel, 326 ; 363. 

Kinglake, A. W., 245. 

Kingsley, Charles, 20 ; 358. 

Knaresborough, 385-386. 

Ku-KIux, the, 321. 



Labouchere, 195. 

Labourers (agricultural), sixty years 
ago, 14. 

Lake, William Charles, 116; 117. 

Landor, Walter Savage, 398. 

Lansdowne, Lord, 408 ; 444. 

Lawn Tennis Club, 463. 

Lawrence, Mrs. Bigelow, 141. 

Lawrence, Sir John, 309. 

Layard, A. H., 170. 

Leader, the, 435. 

Lee, General Robert Edward, 341 ; his 
character, 347 ; as a soldier, 348. 

Le Marchant, Denis, 156. 

Leo XIII, Pope, 393. 

Leopold, Prince, 160 ; 282. 

"Letters of Runnymede," 161 ; 178 ; 
179. 

Lewis, Sir George Cornewall, 107 ; 
108; 199. 

Lewis, John, quoted, 443. 

Liberal, the [Toronto], 443. 

Liddell, H. G., 101 ; 103. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 320 ; 321 ; 334 ; 
second election of, 336 ; his ig- 
norance of money matters, 338 ; 
340 ; his character and appearance, 
354 et seq.; as a statesman, 355. 

Lincoln's Inn, 121. 

Lind, Jenny, 82 ; 151 ; 152. 

Lindsey, Charles, Goldwin Smith's 
letter to, 453. 

Lindsey, George G. S., 454. 

Lin wood, W., 52. 



Literature, Canada as a field for, 

460. 
Littlemore, 61. 
Liverpool, Earl of, 324. 
London, life in, 132 et seq. 
Longfellow, H. W., 331. 
Longley, C. T., Archbishop, 107. 
Long Marston, 5. 
Lorcha War, 288. 
Loring, Charles, 328. 
"Lothair," quotation from, 171 ; 182. 
Louis Napoleon. jSee Napoleon III. 
Lowe, Mrs., 312. 
Lowe, Robert (afterwards Viscount 

Sherbrooke) , 309 ; appearance and 

character, 311; as a talker, 311; 

anecdotes of, 311 et seq. 
Lowell, J. R., 332 ; 372. 
Loyal and Patriotic Union, the, 409 ; 

444. 
Lushington, Stephen, 158. 
Lyndhurst, Baron, 156. 
Lyons, Admiral Lord, 28 ; 290. 
Lyons, the first Earl, 353. 
Lyttleton, the fourth Baron, 199. 
Lytton, Bulwer. See Bulwer. 



M 



Macaulay, 132; 167; quoted, 397. 

" Macbeth," 153. 

Macdonald, Sir John A., 341 ; 430 

et seq. ; 434. 
Macdonald, John Sandfield, 436. 
Mackenzie, Alexander, 435 ; his 

character, manner, and work, 436. 
Maffia, the, 391, 392. 
Magdalen College, 51 ; Fellows of, 

55; re^^sited, 381. 
Mail, the [Toronto], 435. 
Maine, Sir Henry, 163. 
Malmcsbury, third Earl of, 168. 
Manchester School, the, 174; 215; 

its creed, 220 ; 287. 
Manners, Lord John (sixth Duke of 

Rutland), 162. 
Manning, Henry Edward, Cardinal, 

62. 
Mario, 152. 
Marx, Karl, 327. 
Maule, William Henry, 128. 
Maurice, Frederick Denison, 362. 
May Day, 9. 
Maynooth, 304 ; 308. 



INDEX 



473 



Mazzini, Giuseppe, 96 ; 155. 
McDonnell, Sir Alexander, 202 ; 304. 
McMullen, John Mercier, 433. 
Meade, Gen. George Gordon, 347. 
Melbourne, Lord, 46. 
Memory, remarks on, 34. 
Mennonites, 417. 
Merchant Shipping Act, 188. 
Metcalfe, Lord, 425. 
Metternich, Prince, 87. 
Miall, Edward, 116-120. 
Middleton, General, 411 ; 455. 
Mill, John Stuart, 359 ; 360. 
Milman, Henry Hart, 4 ; 136 ; 199. 
Milnes, Monckton. See Houghton, 

Lord. 
Milton, John, 240. 
Miracles, 394. 
Mitchell, Colonel, 178. 
Mitford, Miss, 25. 
Monkton Farley (or Farleigh), 32. 
Moriarty, Bishop, 308. 
Morley, Viscount, 194 ; his portrait 

of Cobden, 242 ; quoted, 259 ; 261 ; 

264; 270. 
Morning Chronicle, the, 161. 
Mornj% due de, 146. 
Morris, John Brande, 65. 
Mortimer House, 13 ; 272 ; 380. 
Mortimer Parish, 13. 
Mouat, J. G., 446. 
Mowbray, Sir John, 27 ; 380. 
Mozley, James, 56. 
Miiller, Max, 272 ; 276. 
Mummers, 7. 

Mundella, A. J., 172; 294-295. 
Murat, 393. 
Murchison, Sir Roderick Impey, 29 ; 

67; 138 et seq.; 288. 
Mutiny, the Indian. See Indian 

Mutiny, the. 

N 

Naples, 392. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, likenesses of, 

24 ; appearance of, ib. 
Napoleon III, 155; 220; 247; 287; 

289; 291; 325. 
Nation, The New York, 413. 
Nation, The [Toronto], 443. 
Naushon, 330. 
Neale, Sir H. B., 273. 
New Year's Day, 8. 



Newcastle, the fourth Duke of, 37. 
Newcastle, the fifth Duke of, 106; 

116; 119; 161; 176; 185; 201; 

291. 
Newman, Francis, 61. 
Newman, John Henry, Cardinal, 61 ; 

167. 
Newman, Thomas Harding, 60. 
"Newmanism," 80; 382. 
Newspaper reporter, anecdote of, 

333. 
Niagara, Cobden's remark on, 224. 
Nicholas I, Czar, 139 ; 287. 
Normandy, tour in, 92. 
Norton, Charies Eliot, 329. 
Notarbartolo, 391. 
Noyes, J. H., 375. 



O 



O'Brien, William, 409. 

O'ConneU, Daniel, 178; 264. 

Odessa, siege of, 291. 

O'Hagan, first Baron, 202 ; 304; 313. 

O'Leary, Arthur, 313. 

Oneida Community, the, 375-376. 

Opera, the, 151. 

Oratory, English and American, 405 ; 
Parliamentary, 149. 

Oriel College, 99. 

Oronyatekha, 283. 

Osier, Professor, 272. 

Ossington, first Viscount, 149. 

Oxford (the University), life at, 52- 
53; before reform, 67; 98-99; 
the curriculum, 68 ; undergraduate 
life at, 69; after reform, 113-114; 
society at, 275 ; revisited, 380-381. 

Oxford (the University), the Com- 
mission of Inquiry and the Ex- 
ecutive Commission. See under 
Commissions, the University. 

Oxford University Bill of 1854, 105 ; 
106-107. 

Oxoniensis, letters of, 101. 

Owen, Robert, 376. 

Owen, Sir Richard, 138. 



Pakington, J. S., 166. 
Palermo, 391. 
Palizzolo, 392. 
Palmer, Fyshe, 2. 



474 



INDEX 



Palmer, Roundel. See Selborne, first 
Earl of, 55. 

Palmer, William, 56. 

Palmerston, Lord, 166; 170; 218; 
224; 266; 284; 288; 289; 324. 

Paris, comte de, 146. 

Parke, Sir James, 123. 

Parker, Charles Stuart, 177-205. 

Parliament. See House of Commons. 

Parnell, 316. 

Parr, Samuel, 53. 

Parr, Thomas, 108. 

Parsons, hunting, 19. 

Parsons, sixty years ago, 14. 

Party system, the, 299; 410; in 
America, 334 ; in Canada, 425. 

Pasquale, Villari, 398. 

Patrons of Industry, the, 447. 

Pattison, Mark, 84; 85; 100; 278. 

Pearson, Mrs., 290. 

Peel, Sir Robert, 161; 174; 175; 
180; 194; 20.3-205; 207; speech 
referring to Disraeli's request for 
place, 213 ; 248-249 ; burial place 
of, 250 ; political character, 250- 
251; 255; 256 et seq. ; financial 
policy, 260 ; attitude of leaders 
of Corn Law League towards, 262 ; 
and Cobden, quarrel between, 262- 
263 ; character of, 264 ; and Cob- 
den, reconciliation of, 265 ; 317. 

Peelites, the, 185 ; 200 ; 287. 

Pell, J. E., 456. 

Penjdeh incident, 408. 

Pension system, the Army, 403—404. 

Pensions Arrears Bill, 403. 

Perugia, 95. 

Peter the Great, 231. 

Phelps, Samuel, 153. 

Phoenix Park, 301 ; 314; 315. 

Pigott, E. F. Smyth, 150 ; 154. 

Playdell-Bouverie. iSee Bouverie. 

Plumptre, Frederick Charles, 41. 

Plunket, first Baron, 208. 

Poe, Edgar Allan, 332. 

Pompeii, 387. 

"Pop" at Eton, 38. 

"Popanilla." See "Voyage of Cap- 
tain Popanilla." 

Pope, Joseph, 435. 

Portland, the fifth Duke of, 192. 

Potter, Thomas Bayley, 257; 322; 
326. 

Powell, Baden, 101. 



Prague, 80. 

Prairie, the, 415. 

President, the, of the United States, 

a presentation to, 402. 
Prince Consort, the, 45 ; 181 ; 281 ; 

324. 
Prince Imperial, the, 291. 
Prince of Wales (afterwards King 

Edward VII), 315. 
Pritchards, a Welsh family, 5. 
Property, private ownership of, 232. 
Protection, 183 ; 185 ; 217. 
Proudhon, 232. 
Psi Upsilon Society, 370. 
Public School, the, influence of, 119- 

120. 
Pullman, 327. 
Pusey, E. B., 62. 
Pym, John, 240 ; 250. 



Quakerism, 240-241. 
Quarterly Review, quoted, 345. 
Quebec, destiny of, 426, 427. 



R 

Rachel, 151. 

Railway, the Great Western, 280. 

Ravenna, 95; 390-391. 

Reade, Charles, 56. 

Reading (the town), 1-11 ; 380. 

Reading parties in the long vacation, 

69. 
Rebellion, Canadian Northwest, 455. 
Reed, Thomas Brackett, 404. 
Reform Bill (of 1832), 10, 11 ; 225. 
Reid, Wemyss, 211. 
"Relations between America and 

England, The," 409. 
Reporters, newspaper, 411. 
Richardson, C. Gordon, 446. 
Richmond, George, portrait-painter, 

159. 
Riel, Louis, 411; 455. 
Ring, Dr., 7. 
Rintoul, R. S., 165. 
Ristori, 150. 
Riviere, Briton, 131. 
Robert the Devil, 93. 
Rockingham, 300. 
Rocky Mountains, the, 420. 
Roebuck, J. A., 172 ; 208 ; 294. 



INDEX 



475 



Rogers, Sir Frederic, 169, 209. 

Rogers, J. E. T., 84 ; 277. 

Rogers, Samuel, 133. 

Rogers, William, 117. 

Rolieston, George, 277. 

Rome, Classic and Modern, 395. 

Rosebery, the fifth Earl of, 209. 

Routh, Martin, 51 ; 53; 381. 

Ruloff, 386. 

Ruskin, 358 ; 389. 

Russell, Alexander, 204. 

Russell, Dr. Charles William, 202; 
304; 307. 

Russell, Sir Henry, 26. 

Russell, Lady, of Swallowfield, 365. 

Russell, Lady (wife of Lord John 
Russell), 198. 

Russell, Lord John (first Earl Rus- 
sell), 24, 25; 100; 106; 133; 179; 
207; 225; 266; 325. 



Sackville-West, Mortimer, first Baron, 

148. 
Sadleir, John, 187. 
Sadler's Wells, 152. 
SafB, Count Aurelio, 96 ; 155. 
Sage, Henry W., 378. 
Saint George's Chapel, funeral at, 46. 
Saint Lawrence's Church, Reading, 2. 
Saint Mary's, Parish of, 4. 
Saint Peter's (Rome), 396-397. 
Salisbury, third Marquess of, 163 ; 

178-179; 322; 329. 
Saltaire, 327. 

Sandars, Thomas Collett, 163. 
Saturday Review, The, 162 ; dinners, 

165; 272. 
School life, 32. 
Schoolmates, 33. 
Scott Act, the, 447. 
Scott, Rev. William, 163. 
Seances, spiritualistic, 382-383. 
Secession, 319. 
Sedgwick, Adam, 67. 
Selborne, first Earl of, 59 ; 198 ; 241. 
Sellar, A. C, 295. 
Senate, the United States, 404. 
Seneca Lake, 374-375. 
Senior, Nassau William, 116-117. 
Seward, William Henry, 353. 
Shaftesbury, the eighth Earl of, 204 ; 

284. 



SheflSeld, elections at, 172-173, 294- 
295. 

Sherbrooke, Viscount. See Lowe, 
Robert. 

Sheridan, 341. 

Sherman, General, 341 ; 345. 

Silchester, 13. 

Simcoe, John Graves, 452. 

Simpson, Professor, 304. 

Skye Crofters, 417. 

Slavery, 319 et seq.; 334. 

Smith, Arthur, death of, 6 ; 38. 

Smith, Assheton, 17. 

Smith, Goldwin, boyhood, 1 et seq.; 
goes to school at Monkton Farley, 
32 ; goes to Eton, 35 ; leaves Eton, 
49 ; matriculates, 50 ; enters Mag- 
dalen College, 51 ; takes first-class 
honours, 68 ; leaves Magdalen, 73 ; 
tutor of University College, 77 ; 
travels on the Continent, 88 et seq. ; 
visits Switzerland, ib.; the Tyrol, 
ih., et seq. ; spends a summer at 
Dresden, 90; visits Prague, ib.; 
visits Hanover, 91 ; takes a car- 
riage drive through Normandy, 
92 et seq. ; visits Caen, 93 ; visits 
Falaise, ib. ; meets Guizot, 94 ; 
visits Italy, 95 ; at Rome, ib. ; at 
Ravenna, ib.; at Perugia, ib.; 
at Venice, ib., 96 ; Assistant Secre- 
tary to the University Commission 
of Inquiry, 102 ; Secretary to the 
Commission of Reform, 107 ; 
Member of the Education Com- 
mission, 116; studies Law, 121; 
goes on Circuit, 123 ; social life 
in London, 132 et seq.; joins the 
Saturday Review, 162 ; appointed 
to the Regius Professorship of 
Modern History at Oxford, 272 ; 
settles at Oxford, ib.; opposes the 
Great Western Railway, 280, 281 ; 
takes part in elections, 294 et seq.; 
visits Ireland (1862), 301 et seq.; 
(1881), 313 et seq.; speaks on 
behalf of the North at Manchester, 
322 ; visits America, 327 ; visits 
Washington, 352 ; meets Lincoln, 
354 ; resigns the Oxford Professor- 
ship, 365 ; lives at Mortimer, *. ; 
meets Andrew White, 366 ; arrives 
at Cornell University, 371 ; visits 
the Oneida Community, 375 ; 



476 



INDEX 



attends a camp meeting, 376 ; 
revisits England, 380 et seq. ; visits 
Italy, 387 el seq. ; at Venice, 389 ; 
at Ravenna, 390 ; second visit to 
Italy, 391 et seq.; visits Sicily, 391 ; 
at Naples, 392 ; at Pizzo, 393 ; at 
Amalfi, 394 ; at Capua, 395 ; at 
Rome, 396 ; revisits Washington, 
399 et seq.; visits the Northwest 
Territories of Canada, 414 et seq.; 
at Winnipeg, 416 ; visits the Skye 
Crofters, 417 ; forms the Loyal 
and Patriotic Union, 444 ; joins 
the "Reciprocity" movement, 446, 
takes part in the Liberal Tem- 
perance Campaign, 446, 447 ; 
settles in Canada (1871), 450; 
marriage, ib.; defends General 
Middleton, 455, 456; interests 
himself in civic charities, 456 ; 
founds the Athletic Club, 459 ; 
460 ; advocates university cen- 
tralization, 461 et seq.; patronizes 
athletics, 463 ; his accident, 466. 

Smith, Mrs. Goldwin, 450 ; death of, 
464. 

Smith, Henry, 276. 

Smith, Dr. Richard Pritchard (Gold- 
win Smith's father), his second 
marriage, 12 ; retires, 13 ; death 
of, 365. 

Smith, Mrs. R. P. (Goldwin Smith's 
mother), death of, 6. 

Smith, Sydney, 134 ; 136. 

Smolcing, 21. 

Socialism, 228-229. 

Society, rural, sixty years ago, 15, 
16. 

Soult, Marshal, 45. 

South African War. See Boer 
War. 

Spectator, The, 165. 

Spence, James, 320. 

Spencer, Bishop, 58. 

Spencer, Herbert, 139, 140. 

Spiritualism, 383 et seq. 

Spithead, 274. 

Sports. iSee Athletics. 

Sprague, Professor and Mrs., 375. 

Squires, sixty years ago, 15. 

St. Helier, Lord. See Jeune, Fran- 
cis. 

Stanhope, the fifth Earl, 133; 146; 
156. 



Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, 77; 100; 

102; 152; 255; 344. 
Stansfield, Sir James, 155; 215. 
Statesmanship, American, 406, 407. 
Stephen, James Fitzjames, 117 ; 133 ; 

167. 
Strachan, Bishop, 461. 
Strahan & Paul, 289. 
Sti-athfieldsaye, 21. 
"Strawberry Hill," 144 et seq. 
Stubbs, William, 84 ; 277. 
Students, American, 369. 
Suffrage, the, 225. 
Sumner, Charles, 344 ; 409. 
Sun, the New York, 413. 
Swindon, 281. 
Syracuse (the Sicilian), 95. 



Tait, Archbishop, 101 ; 103 ; 196. 

Talfourd, Sir T. N., 26. 

Taylor, Bayard, 372. 

"Tea, Afternoon," the old-fashioned, 

280. 
Teck, Prince, 313. 
Telepathy, anecdote of, 273. 
Temperance movement in Ontario, 

the, 446. 
Temple, ^ee Templer, John Charles. 
Temple, Frederick (Archbishop), 72. 
Templer, John Charles, 122. 
Tennyson, 142 ; 288. 
Thackeray, W. M., 137. 
Theale, parish of, 55. 
Theatre, the, 150. 
Thessiger, Frederick, 166. 
Thirlwall, Bishop, 82. 
Thomas, George Henry, 345. 
Thomasson, Thomas, 228 ; 364. 
Thomson, William, 285. 
Tichborne Case, 70. 
Tietjens, Teresa, 151. 
Times, 281 ; 315. 
Titles of honour, 428. 
Tractarian movement, the, 60. 
Trade unions, 228. 
Trent affair, the, 324. 
Trevelyan, Sir Charles, 203. 
Trials, notable, 125-127. 
Tupper, Sir Charles, 437 ; 438. 
Twisleton, Edward, 107 ; 109. 
Twiss, Travers, 86. 
Tyndall, John, 138. 



INDEX 



477 



u 

Union League, the, 322. 

Unions, Trade-, 295. 

"United States, The" (Goldwin 

Smith's book), 460. 
Universities, Canadian, 461 et seq.; 

Universities, contrasted, 368. 
University. See under "Oxford" 

and UTider "Commission." 
University College, Common Room 

of, 75. 
University Reform, 73. 
Upton Manor House, 14. 
Urquhart, David, 136. 



Vancouver (British Columbia), 422. 
Van Home, Sir W. C, 419. 
Vaughan, Henry Halford, 93; 274; 

275. 
Venables, George, 163 ; epitaph on, 

165; 331. 
Venice, 389. 
Verhuel, Admiral, 291. 
Verney, Lady, 93. 
Victoria (British Columbia), 420, 

421, 422. 
Victoria, Queen, 45 ; 46 ; 155 ; 179 ; 

181; 314. 
ViUiers, C. P., 260. 
"Vivian Grey," 255. 
"Voyage of Captain Popanilla, The," 

180; 182. 

W 

Waldegrave, Frances, Lady, 144 et 

seq. 
Waldron, Gordon, 448. 
Walker, Thomas, 170. 
Walrond, Theodore, 219. 
Walsingham, Sir F., portrait of, 148. 
Walter, Count of Mantes, 93. 



Walter, John, 27. 

Ward, Sally. iSee Mrs. Bigelow Law- 
rence. 
Ward, W. G., 61 ; 63 ; 73. 
Warde, John, 12 ; 17. 
"Warfare of Science and Religion," 

66. 
Waring, George, 278. 
Warren, T. Herbert, 381. 
Washington (the city), 352; 399; 

society at, 407. 
Waterloo, battle of, 38 ; 160. 
Wayte, S. W., 105. 
Webster, Daniel, 45. 

Weekly Sun, the [Toronto], 448. 
Welbeck, 192. 

WeUesley, Gerald, 22. 

Wellington, the first Duke of, 21 ; 
102 ; 290 ; resemblance to Grant, 
344. 

Wellington, the second Duke of, 24. 

Whist, 400. 

White, Andrew D., 66 ; 366 ; 370. 

White House, a presentation at the, 
402 ; reception at, 408. 

Wigan, A. S., 151. 

Wilberforce, Samuel, Bishop of Ox- 
ford, 63; 83; 143. 

WUder, Professor Burt G., 378-379. 

William the Conqueror, 93. 

William III, 175. 

WUliam IV, 45. 

Williams, Edward Vaughan, 123. 

Williams, Monier, 276. 

Wilson, J. M., 278. 

Winkworth, Mr. and Mrs., 364. 

Winnipeg, 416. 

Wolseley, Lord, 189. 

Woman suffrage, 360. 

Wright, Mrs. Atkins, 1. 

Wyburnbury, 5. 

Y 
Yarmouth (Isle of Wight), 274. 



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